Movado Gets Surreal With Artist Kenny Scharf

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Welcome to Dialed In, Esquire's regular column bringing you horological happenings and the most essential news from the watch world.

Movado has a long history of fusing art and function in watches. Founded in 1881 in La Chaux De Fonds, the heart of the Swiss watchmaking industry, it specialized early in technically innovative mechanical movements packaged in attractively designed cases. But a new creative lease of life came a century later when it was acquired by Gedalio Grinberg’s North American Watch Corporation in 1983 and then launched a series of artist's watches in 1987. The first was the Times 5, created with Andy Warhol and completed after his death in a limited run of 250 pieces. A riff on repetition, it was effectively a multi time-zone watch comprised five linked, tank-shaped cases, each featuring a black and white photograph of New York on its dial.

Movado has since worked with numerous artists, blurring the lines between photography, fashion, industrial design, and pure art and collaborating with, amongst others, fashion designers Proenza Schouler, photographer Alexi Lubomirski and industrial designer Max Bill. This month, however, saw the debut—or the re-debut, if you like—of a collaboration that began back in 2009 with New York-based Pop-Surrealist Kenny Scharf. The new collection features six distinct watch designs based on the iconic Museum watch first created by American industrial designer Nathan George Horwitt in 1947. A defining statement in modernist mid-century thinking—and still a pillar of the Movado collection—it was the first ever watch design accepted into the inventory of the Museum Of Modern Art in New York, in 1960.

Scharf’s new designs take the minimalist canvas of the Museum Watch and plaster onto it his unique visual language of amorphous, humanoid shapes called Blobzmos in eye-popping colors. Each is reminiscent of specific art works created by Scharf. The 42mm case designs, in the brand’s own TR90 composite material, echo key colors from each of the dial designs, amplifying the visual impact on the wrist. And if that wasn't enough for you, the six quartz-driven watches are complemented by nine bracelets—also designed by Scharf himself.

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