I like these moments in life the place you unexpectedly put two and two collectively, realizing these likelihood connections between issues, typically weeks, months, or years after they’ve occurred. Truthfully, it’s no small a part of why I ended up a journalist.
So, again in January, I used to be getting ready for an interview at SIHH with a designer who I’d been informed was working with Hermès on a very new watch assortment. His identify was Ini Archibong and I simply couldn’t work out why that sounded so acquainted. I imply, Ini Archibong isn’t a reputation you’d quickly neglect, proper? A fast Google search later and I spotted that I’d seen – and cherished – a few of his furnishings and lighting designs at Milan’s Salone del Cell honest again in 2016. The work had left an impression behind my thoughts, and out of the blue I knew what one of many highlights of my SIHH was going to be.
Positive sufficient, chatting with Ini about his watch, the Galop d’Hermes, was a breath of contemporary air in the course of the present. Earlier than I left the sales space we determined that a longer dialog proper right here on HODINKEE Radio was a no brainer.
Regardless of hailing from Pasadena, California, Ini lives in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, so it took a while for the celebrities to align. However, whereas on the town for New York Design Week, Ini swung by the HODINKEE workplaces simply earlier than hopping on his flight again to Switzerland. We talked about how his love of watches led him to attend design faculty in Switzerland, what it’s prefer to find out about watchmaking from inside Hermès, and the challenges of being revolutionary in a tradition-minded trade.
Ini’s an superior man and if he hadn’t had that flight to catch, I feel you’d be a two or three hour episode right here.
We hope you take pleasure in Episode 44 of HODINKEE Radio. Take a look at the present notes under and tell us what you assume within the feedback.
