design: the classic Braun watch and similar

The Guardian had a special offer on a handsome Mondaine watch, which reminded me of the watch I wear, which led me to a design article (defunct, but archived on Wayback Machine) about it and some weird new Braun watches.

The AW was designed by Dietrich Lubs in the almighty Dieter Rams‘ Braun design studio, I think in 1989. It’s a beautifully restrained simple design: the watch face is quite small, and the brushed finish is fantastic. It’s not completely minimalist, the touches of Bauhaus red and yellow bring it to life. My AW20 CS model from 1990 shown above is the consummate form, refined from the original AW10; but Braun came up with dozens of variations: black face, chrome/black rim, dateless, Bauhaus blue/red straps, no hour numbers, platinum finish, etc. The last is the AW50 P from 1991, lovely but different in its details.

The watches were available from lots of museum stores and design catalogs in the USA, but availability dwindled and sadly I’ve not seen one for sale in stores for years. They are reasonably priced; I think Braun gave some away with their top-of-the-line shaver. (Braun was acquired by another shaving company Gillette (!) in 1967, which in turn was acquired by soap maker Procter & Gamble (!!) in 2005). I ordered my AW20 CS from timedesign.de (defunct as of 2025) . The watch is durable, but in case it is discontinued I ordered a spare, plus an AW50 P that I’ve never removed from its box. I also ordered a bunch of spare straps because the smooth band of leather eventually disintegrates at the clasp. My first order never arrived— some postal employee in the delivery chain has a couple of nice wristwatches ☹—but to their credit TimeDesign re-sent the order.

Alternative modern watches

There are similar designs. Ruedi Külling designed the clean Xemex Offroad classic design for a lot more money in 1996, but Xemex seems to have moved on to chunky chronometer crap.

And Mondaine the “Official Swiss Railways Watch” (as opposed to Victorinox the “official Swiss Army watch”) took Hans Hilfiker’s 1944 Swiss railway station clock and put it on a strap in 1986, e.g. their A669.30008.16SBO model. The Braun is the Futura of watches, the Mondaine is the Helvetica.

Porsche Design has a similar clean watch, the IWC Porsche Design ref. 3330. There are lots of variations: gold rim, light face, dots around the edge, etc. The vertical and horizontal axes and dots on the case are interesting alternatives to writing out 1-12 on the watch face. Sadly Porsche Design and International Watch C^o are compelled to slap their corporate names all over what should be a minimalist watch face.

Another design from Germany is the Junghans Max Bill Automatic Bauhaus. But it’s not quartz, so it’s $1,890! It has a sketch of the original Bauhaus movement’s building on the back through which you can see the movement.

More Braun watch details

Watch site Hodinkee (?) has an article on Braun watches.

Interesting Reddit thread about Braun watches, the OP bought the same two watches as me plus an AW24. Another one only about the AW20.

Timedesign.de seems defunct, it redirects to a time management company; there is a similar time-design.co.uk site but it sells boring Zeno watches. The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to the rescue! Its last crawl of TimeDesign’s Braun page in 2024 before it redirected to a time management company (?😢) is https://web.archive.org/web/20241201182647/https://timedesign.de/marken/braun_e.html That page has lots of great info. It mentions some comebacks of the “Braun” watch brand:

• In 2011, ZEON presented a new Braun collection, but made in China.
• In 2017 Braun brought back the AW10 and AW50

It also has sections with details of all the AW (“analog watch” – Braun’s first watches were digital LED watches) variations. For the AW20 the specifications include:

• Size: Ø 31mm x 7mm
• Lug Width: 18mm
• Movement: RONDA 715 — SWISS Quartz — 11½‴ = Ø 25.6mm x H 2.5mm — 1 Jewel
• Battery: Button Cell 371

My AW20 CS is marked “3 802”. on the back.

Strapped for time

In 2026 I wore out the last official Braun strap from TimeDesign. Actual Braun watch straps are very hard to find on the web. Watchbands.co.uk has a white strap for a Chinese-made Braun watch that would probably fit mine. The archived TimeDesign page shows dozens of luscious strap colors. Looking at these, they have a calfskin lining, whereas the ones I ordered are black on the inside, maybe not as durable.

People on Reddit recommend various watch strap sellers and makers. Few in-stock are simple and clean with no stitching. I doubt stitching is why the Braun straps fall apart after 20 months, they’re just not very durable. But companies like The Strap Tailor make custom straps that you can order without stitching with many options (“stingray” leather?!). I think the AW20 clasp’s gap is 16.5 mm wide, so there’s a slight taper from the lugs. The two halves of the strap are 115 mm/75 mm long. One trick would be to reuse the original clasp with “Braun” lettering; when one of my Braun strap broke on holiday, someone in a While-U-Wait watch repair booth glued a replacement strap around its clasp.