Super Luxe: Atmos Hermès Clock

Devised in 1928, the Atmos mechanism strains belief: it is powered by neither electricity nor battery and does not need to be wound up. A sealed capsule containing a combination of gases expands and contracts with exterior temperature changes, charging the mechanism indefinitely. Even an ordinary wristwatch consumes 250 times more energy than an Atmos clock. The shell of the mechanism was created by alternating layers of colored and translucent glass, a technique which very few glassmakers master.

Alongside its 13 other product types (which include leather goods, silks, ready-to-wear clothing, jewelry, and perfumes) Hermès’s signature timepieces have been its pride since the beginning of the twentieth century. The Atmos clock combines state-of-the-art design with ancestral knowledge. It looks like a futuristic crystal ball ready to tell you what only time can tell. Its design gives one the impression it has hovered down to Earth. It makes you think that Stanley Kubrick would have used it as a central prop in the final scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey when the questing astronaut enters the immaculately white room that seems to be a bedroom in the house of a supreme Grecian deity.