Press Release
Historically, recessions like the one we are currently in tend to be bad for high-end luxury brands like Movado. The strange thing about their recent announcement is that Movado hasn’t actually been hit as hard as many other brands.
The move to close down their boutique stores appears to be more of a well thought out plan for the future than a panicked worst-case scenario decision. Movado figures that if they concentrate on wholesale distribution to third party retailers, they can focus on what they do best, designing and producing quality wristwatches.
Some might question the logic of staying in the wristwatch industry at all in a world of cell phones and mp3 players and a million other ways to tell the time. In a recent interview with the New York Times, however, Movado’s president and chief executive Efraim Grinberg told the Times, “The market is never going to go away. In fact, the market for watches as fashion accessories is expanding.”
This branding of Movado as a luxury fashion brand could be the key to the company’s continued sustainability in the future. The fact is that many watch manufacturers are suffering, and Movado is lucky enough to be able to build its whole brand around one iconic timepiece.
The iconic Movado Museum timepiece
That timepiece is, of course, the Movado Museum. This world-famous watch was created by the industrial designer Nathan George Horwitt in 1947, and its sleek and simple design has been iconic for the company ever since. When Horwitt created the plain black dial with the single circle at 12 o’clock he intended the watch to represent the oldest form of time keeping, the sundial.
| The straightforward design of the Movado Museum watch was so striking that it actually became the first timepiece to ever be displayed in New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. |
When your company is lucky enough to have such a rock-solid timeless product at its core, it makes sense to just focus on design and production. That is why Movado’s recent move out of the retail sector seems like it will pay off for them in the long run. Their company has succeeded in the past through innovation and clever design. It is what they do best and it is what they should be putting their energies into.
Beyond the simple façade of the Museum, Movado has also been exploring a variety of other exciting styles in recent years. The Movado Men’s Black Dial and Stainless Steel Bracelet Watch has a retro-futuristic feel that is reminiscent of scenery from the Stanley Kubrick Classic, “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
This watch does have plain square hour markers but builds off the company’s affinity for simplicity by having a simple “12” at the noon/midnight marker. This watch also has three sub-dials and a date window at 4:00.
Men’s Black Dial and Stainless Steel Bracelet Watch
The modern retro feel of the watch comes from the unique rounded-off rectangular dial as well as how it is built right into the case and seamlessly runs into the bracelet. The pink highlights on some of the numbers in the sub-dial as well as the pink end of the second hand add even more to distinguishing this watch from the rest. It is easy to see how Movado plans to move forward as a lifestyle brand by offering exciting and original watches like this.
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