The Apple Watch Hermès: you think of it either as a style flex for the rich, or an eye-rolling, embarrassing extravagance. But with the Series 11 version of the Apple Watch Hermès, Apple has made the watch a badge of honor that any longtime, dedicated Apple user will proudly wear.
The Hermès watch comes with a jacquard knit band and a matching watch face that features an illustration of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré Hermès store in Paris by artist Tibor Kárpáti, who specializes in bitmap artwork. The band comes with 24 watch face animations “for around-the-clock fun.” One of those watch faces features Clarus the Dogcow. Yes, the Clarus the Dogcow.
Longtime Apple users will know about Clarus the Dogcow, but for those who don’t, here’s the short history. Clarus was created by the iconic (pun intended) Susan Kare, who created the Dogcow glyph for the Cairo font on the original Macintosh in 1984. Clarus became something of a sentimental mascot for the Macintosh team and Mac users. Apple and its users are very different now, so Clarus appearances are rare and greeted wth delight.
Apple often offers exclusive watch faces for the Apple Watch Hermès, so it’s unlikely that it’ll make its way to the rest of the watches. If you absolutely, positively gotta have Clarus the Dogcow on your Apple Watch, you can plunk down $1,249/£1,149 (42mm) or $1,299/£1,199 (46mm) for an Apple Watch Hermès, or you can pay $449/£399 for the Bleu Nuit Faubourg Party Faubourg Party watch band that comes with the 24 watch faces. If you already have a Hermès watch, the watch face is available to you. You lucky bum.
If that’s still too rich for your blood–or you just can’t get over the idea of wearing an Apple Watch Hermès–you can go retro and keep an eye out for the original Clarus the Dogcow quartz watch on sites like eBay, which happens to have one on sale for the moment. This watch has no rings to close, nor can it detect if you’ve fallen, but it does prominently feature Clarus on its face. That’s enough of a badge of honor for a whole lot of us.
Apple Watch Hermès Series 11
Apple Watch Hermès Bleu Nuit Faubourg Party
Author: Roman Loyola, Senior Editor, Macworld
Roman is a Macworld Senior Editor with over 30 years of experience covering the tech industry, focusing on the Mac and other products in the Apple ecosystem. He is also the host of the Macworld Podcast. His career started at MacUser, where he received Apple certification as a repair technician (when Apple did that kind of thing). He's also worked for MacAddict, MacLife, and TechTV.