AROUND HOME : Notes on Laundry Space, Dipped Candles, Tiffany Glass and Movado Watches : Movado Museum Watch

“THIS WATCH DIAL design, distinguished by a single dot, is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.” So goes Movado Museum Watch’s blurb. But visitors to MOMA’s gift shop in New York will look in vain for the Movado watch. “We have nothing to do with it,” Arthur Drexler, then director of MOMA’s Department of Architecture and Design, told Consumer Reports in November, 1986. Drexler even went so far as to put a disclaimer beside the museum’s display of Horwitt’s watch.

On the other hand, MOMA attendance certainly benefits from Movado Watch Corp.’s budget for advertising the watch--about $20-million a year. The radio ads announce that Nathan George Horwitt, who designed the watch face in 1947, was inspired by the solar system: the dot stands for the sun at the zenith or high noon; the hands represent the moving Earth and moon. Taken as art, the elements make a mesmerizing display: three minimalist sculptures constantly gesturing to each other.

So more’s the pity that Movado has tarted up the basic $350 model with variants costing up to $6,000, for diamonds surrounding the face (special order only). Not only is this gilding the lily, but it also vitiates much of the watch’s appeal.

At Bullocks in the Los Angeles area and in Palm Springs, Saks in South Coast Plaza and Beverly Hills, J. Jessop in San Diego.