Watch Spotting: ‘Barbie’ Director Greta Gerwig Wearing A Vintage Movado On The Pink Carpet
If you don’t know what Barbenheimer is, let me get you up to speed: It’s quite literally a portmanteau of two highly anticipated summer movies: Barbie and Oppenheimer. It has since become a phenomenon, as it was created to represent the potential of seeing both films as a double feature. As it turns out, thousands of people indeed bought tickets for this express purpose. And now that both films have hit sold-out cinemas everywhere, it seems like the perfect time to highlight a very cool watch moment that occurred on the promotional tour for the movie Barbie late last month.
The film itself is directed by Greta Gerwig, and stars Margot Robbie as the titular Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken in a pink, plastic, Mattel fever dream of a Hollywood flick. Gerwig, best known for her turns as an actor in indie films such as Frances Ha and as director of the acclaimed Lady Bird and Little Women, appeared at a press junket at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles wearing an interesting vintage Movado.
It looks to be a Movado Triple Calendar from either the 1940s or ’50s. These watches really speak to the era they came from – former President Franklin D. Roosevelt is known to have owned a very similar model. Layout-wise, what you get on a watch like this is the month, and day of the week in cutouts towards the center of the dial, and a pointer tracking the date along the periphery with buttons to control it on the case itself.
These watches came in all manner of dial configurations, from thick block numerals to the thinner ones as we see here. Some were colorful and others more muted with earth tones. Some were steel and others came in gold. Gerwig’s watch is of the precious metal variety in what appears to be yellow gold on a brown leather strap.
The dial is split between a warm brown in the outer track to a light earthy tan in the middle with slender, tall, Arabic numerals. Movado made these in varying sizes and advertised it as a watch for both men and women, which you can see in the ad below. Hers appears to be the 33mm sizing due to the configuration of the dial but the watch is also known to have come in a 36mm option.
It would have been very easy for Gerwig to follow Gosling’s lead on the press tour (or on the pink carpet) and simply wear a 36mm TAG Heuer Carrera Date with the new pink dial. But this choice strikes me as thoughtful, and likely part of her own collection (it also goes nicely with the color of the outfit – but what do I know).
Last night I caught the first public screening of Oppenheimer (more on that very soon), but next on my list is Barbie. And while I doubt we will see a single vintage watch in that one, I’ll just assume Gerwig had this on behind the camera.
Hodinkee
