Movado Museum History

hello cruncher, have you ever saw this iconic dial? im sure many of watch enthusiast would recognise this museum watch by movado. it was very popular back then in 1980 and 1990. well in fact almost all of the modern movado have some sort of this "dot" design element at every model they produced.

a few weeks ago im visiting my father in law and have a little chat, i told him im interested in watch bla bla bla. and to my surprise he's got a few collection and want to show me if im interested. few of them was fashion watch, one omega, and 3 different kind of movado museum. if he remembered correctly he bought it at the end of 1980 or at the beginning 1990, he love the design so much that he bought 3 different variant of the museum.

as a fan of the dresswatch fan i was impressed too by the design of the movado museum (especially the classic one with the leather strap). its a simple design yet beautiful and iconic at the same time. so i dig deeper through the history of the museum watch.

history:

in 1947 an american jewish industrial designer  nathan george horwitt created a unique dial design which come later as museum watch. horwitt's inspiration for the bauhaus style dial was to remove all unnecessary element and focused on the dot above the hands which represent "sun". horwitt trying to sell his design to the various firm but wasn't finding a lot of interest. finally around mid 1950s horwitt has able to get a patent on his design.

then in 1955-1956 nathan george horwitt approached vacheron & constantin-lecoultre watches inc (american company that imported swiss watch) to produced three prototype of the watch with his dial design.

the prototype case design was remind me of the junghans or other bauhaus style watch.

later the fate of the three watch was like this:

1. kept by horwitt himself for personal use

2. sold to the brooklyn museum

3. sold to the new york metropolitan museum of modern art (moma) new york. moma also produced and sell wall clock version of this horwitt design which probably led to the "museum dial" name came from

museum dial clock was also produced "legally" by furniture maker company herman miller and became very popular at 1960.

so what was movado role in this story? around 1950 zenith movado was produced "unnauthorized" version of the museum dial design on their wristwatch. then there goes a long legal battle between the "giant" movado and nathan george horwitt. finally on 1975 horwitt and movado settled for the sum of 29000$. nowadays almost all of the modern movado watch got the "sun" element from museum watch itself, and i can confidently says that museum dial is the face of the modern movado.

the watch:

now for the watch itself, the one that i borrowed was 34mm quartz (most of the movado watch was quartz, but there are some variant with automatic movement) price range is 400-1000$. whole case is polished which get scratched a lot overtime and its very thin case (almost too thin for my taste) which remind me of my father's watch raymond weil othello, i guess very thin quartz watch was very popular at early 1990.

the lug is very strange and i dont know the name of the bracelet, i would call it a "dragon" bracelet from now based on how it looks equipped with jewelery clasp which is not a very safe clasp (i almost drop the watch many time while playing with this type of clasp).

i must admit i really love this museum type dial eventhough im not a fan of the rest of the watch configuration. its a sterile super deep black dial with the dot accent. it looks like a mirror so you can see reflection on the dot itself. the dauphine hand itself its a perfect match for this dial, it also dont have a second hand which is good in my opinion. for 400-1000$ its a little bit hard to recommend this watch knowing there are a far more amazing choice out there. also i think its better to buy a classic option than the newer option.

legacy:

while digging deeper into museum watch i also find other watch that at least was influenced by museum dial at some point, two of them are

venezianico redentore ultra black

h moser endeavor perpetual moon

so what do you guys think about the museum watch? do you like it? do you own it? personally im a fan of some variant of the museum dial. its simple and elegant dresswatch, also i feel the design is timeless. but what about movado as a company? looking back at their history and their shady practice, i guess im not a fan 🍻.

source:

https://www.ablogtowatch.com/movado-museum-dial-classic-watch-history-horwitt/https://www.ablogtowatch.com/movado-museum-dial-classic-watch-history-horwitt/