Drawn to Craft: The Latest Slim d’Hermès Puts an Abstract Painting on Your Wrist

The theme that Hermès has declared its 2025 releases to revolve around is “drawn to craft.” As an enamel apprentice and die-hard fan of artistic crafts in all forms, count me in – Hermès, you have my attention.

If the Slim d’Hermès Cheval brossé is any indication of what’s to come as the Maison puts its prowess in the way of artistic crafts on display, it’s going to be a good year for Hermès.

The horse has become a central symbol of Hermès due to the brand’s origins as a harness maker in 1837. This expertise in leather work later expanded to the brand’s entire catalog of leather goods, from belts to handbags and, naturally, watch straps.

Of course, the image of the horse and carriage now prominently serves as the Hermès logo, and the horse motif continues to be at the core of the brand’s designs across its entire product lineup.
 

Beyond watch straps, we’ve most prominently seen the horse used throughout the Hermès watch models in the Arceau collection – a name that fittingly means “stirrup” and whose asymmetrical lugs are designed to mimic a stirrup shape. In addition, models in the collection feature round cases, thin hands, and italic numbers, evoking the horse round in the riding arena. Of course, the watches are topped off with double-stitched leather straps, just like a Hermès saddle.

Hermès has also interpreted the horse more literally on its watch dials in the Arceau collection and beyond, using a vast array of techniques from paillonne enameling to hand engraving to leather marquetry to other artistic crafts. We get the Maison’s latest interpretation with the Slim d’Hermès Cheval brossé.

Once you’ve worked in the watch industry for over a decade, you lose track of how many thousands of watches you’ve seen. Every day, your inbox is flooded with dozens of new launches, special editions, and collection expansions that much of it becomes white noise and starts to blur together.

So, when an email about a new model stops me in my tracks, you know it’s something special. Getting the opportunity to write about that watch, you’re reminded why this job is such a privilege. This was my experience with the Slim d’Hermès Cheval brossé. I opened this email, and my jaw quite literally fell open – I couldn’t stop staring.
 

This is wearable art – a bold, colorful, abstract painting for the wrist. At first glance, I didn’t even clock (pun intended) that it was an interpretation of the Maison’s iconic horse motif.

Instead, I imagined dots of green, red, and white paint dropped at the center of the pristinely executed blue enamel dial right where the hands would meet. I pictured the hour and minute hands sweeping around the dial, mixing and dispersing the paint in perfectly imperfect arches.

Then I noticed the model’s name – Slim d’Hermès Cheval brossé – translating to “horse brush.” I looked closer and saw this was more than a playful dial depicting the clockwise movement of the timekeeping hands in a splash of colors. It was an if-you-know-you-know stylized reinterpretation of the brand’s emblem: the horse.
 

For this design, the brand enlisted the expertise of legendary designer Dimitri Rybaltchenko. He is responsible for creating many of the iconic Hermès scarfs and boasts a multimedia background in painting, architecture, and sculpture. The Slim d’Hermès, developed in 2015 by Philippe Delhotal, serves as the canvas. Here, a flawless application of blue enamel is the base.

The horse’s profile is then applied in successive layers of color. The motif is first engraved on a hollow base called a cliche or image plate. This plate is then filled with paint, and the color is picked up with a flexible pad and transferred to the dial, using subtle layering to obtain the perfect shade and brilliance.

Despite offering a sleek 30mm by 2.6mm white gold build that slips perfectly under a shirt cuff and showcases a simple, time-only design, this is far more than your average dress watch – this is a statement piece. Powering the Slim d’Hermès Cheval brossé is the ultra-thin mechanical self-winding H1950m movement from the Manufacture Hermès workshop.

The Slim d’Hermès Cheval brossé is priced at $47,800 and available today in a limited production of just 24 pieces. Run, don’t walk to the Hermès website for more information.