The Movado Edge – The Classic Museum Watch Gets Hipped Up by Yves Behar.

movado edge by yves behar

A collaboration between Movado and designer Yves Behar’s Fuse Project have yielded the Movado Edge, a stunningly beautiful modern version of the brand’s classic Museum watch.

Movado Edge by Yves Behar

Movado EDGE

Movado Edge infuses an icon of modern design with stunning new shape and texture. This new watch collection was developed in collaboration with renowned modern industrial designer Yves Béhar who has dynamically reimagined the stark, pure beauty of the Museum Dial conceived in 1947 by artist/designer Nathan George Horwitt.

EDGE CU silver

A synergy of modern design and sculpture is revealed in these contemporary timepieces which bring new dimension to the original Museum Dial, while celebrating its industrial inspiration rooted in the Bauhaus movement.

Movado edge black chronograph1

“We do not know time as a number sequence but by the position of the sun as the earth rotates,” said Horwitt. In 1947, he conceived the iconic Museum Watch – its dial defined by a single gold dot at 12 symbolizing the sun at high noon, with the simple moving hands suggesting the earth’s daily rotation on its axis. Regarded today as an icon of mid-twentieth century Modernism, the Museum Dial remains one of the most recognized and acclaimed watch dial designs of all time.

nathan george horwitt with original movado museum watch
above: Nathan George Horwitt with the original Museum dial watch

As a designer, it is both a daunting and an exciting challenge to design for a watch brand that is both universally recognized as a modern pioneer, and at the same time accessible. Current trends have made analog watch dials highly detailed 2-dimensional graphic exercises, making each watch company identifiable by brand signatures. The other much talked about trend is digital watches – their dials switch between black shiny craft-less screens, to user interface-based digital graphics. Most analog and digital watches today keep the user’s eye on the 2-d world of a watch’s outer surface.

yves behar
above: industrial designer Yves Behar

The opportunity to stand out, to stand for something can be rare in watch design. The central idea of the Movado Edge design was a simple question: how can we draw the eye into the watch dial? We explored a new way to craft a watch with numerous form and material experiments that led to a simple concave shape. To accommodate for the raised dot, we worked with Movado engineers to elevate the watch hands, creating an additional, delicate dynamic. – Yves Behar

Behar’s Fuse Project decribes the design as follows:
The most notable design element on the dial is the textured ridges that outline the circumference. Sixty ridges in total, one for every second in a minute, or minute in each hour, that elegantly balance minimalism and intricacy. By carving out the interior volume made of an aluminum textured surface, we were able to give it life and reflectivity. The machined, subtle 3-dimensional ridges arranged in a circular pattern reflect the light in patterns that constantly change. Like the movement of the sun throughout the day reveals the topography of the earth from desert sand dunes to mountains, the Edge dial relief plays with light and transforms. As the user’s wrist moves, the design changes constantly, symbolically speaking of time as the indicator of change in our lives.

movado edge sketches and elements

The bezel was kept as narrow as possible to visually emphasize both the structural details and the expansive negative space, which in itself carries its own beauty. Another detail literally emerges from the interior surface: the dot is shaped like a volcano, bringing it off the face of the dial to create dimensionality. Polishing on the dot also highlights it in a subtle way by contrasting it to the more porous aluminum surface. The dot instantly becomes suggestive of the sun, an allusion that directly pulls from Nathan George Horwitt’s single dot dial.

THE MOVADO EDGE COLLECTION

There are 14 watches in the new Movado Edge Collection.

For the Men: A 40mm black rubber strap version available with 5 different faces ($495); A 40mm matte black bracelet version with matte black face ($995); Two 40mm silver bracelet versions – grey or black face ($795); Two 42mm silver bracelet Chronograph versions – blue or black face ($995) and the most expensive- a 42 mm black face chronograph on black bracelet for $1,1950.

movado edge 40mm strap versions

movado edge 40mm bracelet versions

movado edge 42mm Chronograph versions

For the Women: 34mm cases on bracelets with matching aluminum dials in yellow gold tone ($995), rose gold tone ($995) or silver toned ($795)

movado edge 34mm ladies bracelet versions

Fusing form, function and inspiration, this transformative new collection includes men’s, women’s and chronograph models on stainless steel link bracelets with push-button deployment clasps, and black leather or black rubber straps with polished stainless steel buckles. Most styles feature an exciting subtle, unexpected touch of color on the dial.

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With a direct, minimalistic aesthetic, Movado Edge for men is crafted in solid polished stainless steel or black PVD-finished steel with a round 40 mm case. The newly transformed concave dials are available in sandblasted black, gray, metallic silver or midnight blue. Defined by the signature ray-textured edge, each dial is detailed by a raised polished matching tonal dot at 12 o’clock, a matte hour hand and glossy minute hand.

movado edge silver face bracelet 1

Poised and balanced, the monochromatic tonal palette of the new women’s models reflects a clean, elegant modernity. The 34mm polished case in stainless steel, or steel with a polished yellow gold or rose gold PVD-finish, is contrasted in texture by a sandblasted concave dial with sculpted ray-textured edge, raised polished dot and matching polished hour and minute hands.

rose gold movado edge

Futuristic in look and feel, the thoroughly ambitious chronograph in polished stainless steel or black PVD-finished steel sports a 42mm case with distinctively styled chronograph pushers. Indexed by an Arabic minute ring printed in white on the inside surface of the crystal, the concave chronograph dial in black or midnight blue sandblasted aluminum is detailed with three tonal sub-dials with white printing. This newly designed dial bears the collection’s sculpted ray-textured edge and raised polished tonal dot. A green or red hour hand provides a bright startling contrast to the darkness of the dial.

Movado EDGE on text bckgd

Shop the Movado Edge collection here

all images and info courtesy of Movado and The fuseproject