Vendor Spotlight: Movado

Timeless innovation.

Award-winning design.

Impeccable craftsmanship.

Movado. They are more than a watch and more than just a timepiece.  Movado is wearable art that carries with it a rich history and heritage dating all the way back to 1881!

When you wear a Movado watch, you're not just wearing a watch. You're making a statement: a statement about taste, class, and elegance. You're in to more than something just looking good, you want it to function flawlessly.

It's my honor to present to you Movado in our Vendor Spotlight Series...

Movado: Where It All Began...

The magic of Movado started in 19-year-old watchmaker Achille Ditesheim, who founded the company that was to become Movado in 1881, in the village of La Chaux-de-Fonds, the heart of fine Swiss watchmaking.

With just 6 craftsmen at the beginning, his workshop grew to 80 passionate workmen by 1897 fueled  Ditesheim's drive to create timepieces that would be in their own elite class. Little did he know, they would make history...

Achille Ditesheim’s firm began to win awards at the turn of the century when large watchmaking exhibitions came on the scene.  In 1905, they won the gold medal for quality, creativity and design at the famed Liege Exposition in Belgium!

In this very same year, the firm adopted the name “Movado”, which means “always in motion” in the international language of Esperanto.

The name Movado was a perfect choice as this cutting-edge company is always in motion creating new designs and has earned more than 100 patents and 200 international awards for their incredible artistry and one-of-a-kind innovation in watch design and time technology.

The 1912 Polyplan design is a great example of their ingenuity. This patented beauty was one of the first “form” movements developed specifically for long, curved wrist watches, very much the style in the years before WWI. Polyplan’s genius design was built on three planes that were angled to the natural shape of the wrist.  The name given to this small wonder was inspired by the patented design – Polygon means many angles!

1925 The Birth of Modern Style

Interestingly, the Movado factory in La Chaux-de-Fonds had initially specialized in pocket watches. Early designs focused on ladies’ small pendant and shell-encased watches, eight-sided 18K gold pieces, and elegant engine-turned, jeweled cases.

1925 was a turning point for Movado as a new style was born.  1925 marked the beginning of Art Deco— a modern style that featured strong geometric and symmetric compositions as well as a sleek machine-age look. Jewelry was heavily influenced by this period as well as interior design and much much more.

Naturally Movado began to explore and experiment with this new classical look and incorporate it into its designs.

In 1926, Movado continued to push the design envelope with the first made-for-travel timepiece. This timepiece known as the "Ermeto", departed from the typical pocket watch as it featured a rectangular capsule-shaped case, often covered in exotic leather or exquisitely enameled or jeweled, that slid open to reveal the dial.

This Ermeto model continue to evolve from a manually wound timepiece to an automatically wound movement  from the sliding motion of the case– a revolutionary, patented Movado design. It was one of the few  "unisex” watches suitable for both men and women. Another example of Movado's genius...one of many actually.

Let's move forward a few decades of design and talk about the watch that really put Movado on the map.

1947: The Museum Dial--A Watch of Iconic Proportions

The Movado Museum Watch can trace its origins back to the Bauhaus movement in 1919. This movement was the most influential modernist art school of the 20th century. They endeavored to teach and understand art's relationship to society and technology and stressed uniting art and industrial design. Simplicity, tastefulness, and function was their mantra.

In 1947, from this passion of design and utility, came the expression of  Movado's iconic single gold dot on a black watch dial, designed by American artist Nathan George Horwitt.

“We do not know time as a number sequence,” Horwitt said, "but by the position of the sun as the earth rotates".

Thus this groundbreaking single gold dot at 12 o’clock symbolizes the sun at high noon; the moving hands suggesting the movement of the earth.

Horwitt’s dial design was selected for the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1960, making it the first ever watch dial to gain this recognition. This is where the name  “Museum Watch” comes from!

Movado Today

Movado continues to push the envelope and create masterful and innovative designs. Their watches are unparalleled in style and fashion and complement everyone's style.

Here are a few of my favorite Movado's watches...

 We're honored that Mullen Bros. Jewelers ranks #1 in overall customer ratings among all jewelry stores in Southeastern Massachusetts and we will continue to take care of our neighbors and friends, one jewel at a time.