Amida Digitrend Steel Edition

AMIDA is a Swiss brand and movement manufacturer founded in 1925 in Granges, which later moved to Montreux before collapsing in 1979 due to the quartz crisis. At its peak, AMIDA employed just over 300 people. At Baselworld in March 1976, in the midst of the quartz revolution and the advent of LCD electronic watches, AMIDA introduced a mechanical model with a digital display: the Digitrend. A singular watch, combining two patents: one for its jumping-hour movement, the other for its refraction display using a prism. Also known as the "drivers watch", this watch was a direct inspiration for several independent brands in the 2010s.

We have been passionate since 2015 about what this iconic model represents, namely the retro-futuristic, space-age universe, automotive design and architecture from the 1950s to the 1970s. We are now devoted to redesigning the AMIDA brand with the idea of continuing its history through this fantasized vision of the past, where the future was synonymous with a better world.

Naturally, we started to redesign an authentic version of the Digitrend, seeking to improve every detail while preserving the very essence of the product. First of all, we called on Johann Terretaz, a Swiss graphic designer and typographer. Then our friend and partner, Bruno Herbet, to design a new additional module for the jumping-hour display, compatible with a Soprod Newton automatic movement. Thanks to his background and previous experience as a watch engineer, he was able to find the equation that calculates the exact reflection for an optimal 90-degree display.