![\"BN-EJ452_mag091_J_20140903155602\"](\"https:\/\/www.dutyfreehunter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/BN-EJ452_mag091_J_20140903155602.jpg\")
![\"CA1_hermes-Nautilus-pen_opener\"](\"https:\/\/www.dutyfreehunter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/CA1_hermes-Nautilus-pen_opener.jpg\")
Herm\u00e8s teams up with Marc Newson and Japan’s Pilot to make a pen that you won’t want to let out of your hand.<\/p>\n
The pen, the Herm\u00e8s Nautilus, is the first writing instrument from a brand that has already ascended to the top in the fields of leather goods, saddlery, silk scarves, scents, clothing and wristwatches.<\/p>\n
At an exclusive showing in Paris in July, Herm\u00e8s unveiled this devilishly clever writing instrument, a gorgeous thing possessing Bauhaus purity, Japanese technical prowess, French elegance and a witty “user interface” \u2013 to describe this modern take on an ancient discipline in current parlance, for those of Generations X, Y and Z who have never actually used ink-bearing tools. The pen is undeniably gorgeous, covetable and above all, a tactile delight.\u00a0You do not want to give it up, once you\u2019ve rolled it around with your fingers, fiddled with its “operating system” (another term borrowed from the very technology that\u2019s out to kill the pen) and, finally, used it for its intended purpose.<\/p>\n
This is also portable wealth due to its worth, portable art due to its design and a guilty pleasure given price tags on either side of \u20ac1000 depending on your choice of fountain pen or rollerball. Think of the latter dilemma as LP vs CD, red wine vs white or mechanical watch vs quartz. The choice is yours, as are the assorted colours.<\/p>\n
Herm\u00e8s artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas and Newson imposed upon themselves a narrow purview \u2013 then again, there is little scope within the confines of a slim, hand-held writing tool for adventurism. But that is the challenge to which they have risen: respecting the Herm\u00e8s ethos, while offering something noteworthy and fresh.<\/p>\n
What they produced is a perfect balance of form and function. They have adapted Pilot\u2019s clever retractable mechanism, suitable for both fountain pen and rollerball, to suit a far sexier \u2013 let\u2019s admit it, French \u2013 delivery. Instead of a pushbutton common to ballpoint pens, with a clunky click, the fountain pen\u2019s nib or rollerball extends from its protected position within the barrel with a twist of the pen\u2019s upper half. It is joyously damped, and one imagines something clever like silicon fluid hydraulically smoothing the operation within the machined-aluminium chassis.<\/p>\n
It is so perfectly weighted that the pen seems to close itself as required. The cross-section, markedly less geometrically severe than the equilateral triangle of the Omas 360 and actually looking like a horseshoe from the equestrian branch of Herm\u00e8s, presents the same instinctive\/automatic positioning of the nib the right way up \u2013 something not offered by pens with a cylindrical barrel. This pen has upper and lower surfaces.<\/p>\n
Herm\u00e8s does not make mistakes because it pursues perfection and refuses to compromise. With Nautilus, available through their boutiques, they have created a writing instrument devised as much to satisfy their devoted, traditional customers who want everything the house produces, as it is to entice pen aficionados. The latter, who may never have savoured the whiff of Concentr\u00e9 d\u2019Orange Verte nor handled an Herm\u00e8s handbag, will soon be converted.<\/p>\n
Source: Telegraph<\/p>\n
Images: Hermes<\/p>\n