Mido Multifort TV Big Date Review: '70s Throwback Style with a Touch of Luxury

Of all the vintage-style watches that are all the rage today — and there are plenty of them — perhaps none are more charmingly retro in their appeal than watches with a soft-square “TV” case. Not only is the shape itself evocative of a bygone era in watch design, but even its descriptor is hopelessly dated. When was the last time, after all, that you encountered a TV set that actually had that shape? It’s similar to the way we still call our smart devices “phones,” even if we aren’t really making telephone calls on them much anymore.

But I digress. The gist here is that Mido was one of the first watchmakers to lean into the “TV” shape for its timepieces, with its first one debuting all the way back in 1973 — that halcyon era when television screens were still square and families gathered around them to watch All in the Family, The Waltons, and Hawaii Five-O. In 2023, 50 years later and well into the modern era of flat-screens and video streaming, Mido brought back the TV case in an extension of its Multifort collection, first in all-steel versions and eventually in the rose-gold-PVD-coated steel model we showcase here. 

The Multifort TV Big Date represents the latest intriguing evolution of the Multifort series, which is actually one of the brand’s oldest product families, the first model having debuted as early as 1934 — long before most American homes even had television sets, in fact. In addition to its three-part case, which measures an almost-perfectly square 40mm by 39.2mm and boasts a well-balanced assortment of polished and satin-brushed finishes, the watch catches attention with its gradient brown dial, with a horizontally brushed textural motif. At every hour position but one, Mido has placed geometrical applied markers: trapezoids at the quarter-hours of 3, 6, and 9 o’clock, and large dots at the intervening hours, all coated with white Super-LumiNova that emits a blue-green glow in the dark.

At the remaining hour position — 12 o’clock — is the eye-catching element that both distinguishes this model from the rest of the Multifort line and gives it its name: the oversized date display, on color-matched, separately rotating numeral disks, in a rectangular aperture above the Mido logo. Up close, you can see the subtle stacking of the disks in the two framed windows; from afar, you can read the date without squinting. A dot on the squared bezel above 12 o’clock echoes the round indexes on the dial and serves as a reference point. White, printed hash marks and numerals mark the minutes on the dial’s flange. The central hour and minute hands are diamond-cut and faceted, nickel-plated, and coated with Super-LumiNova.

The sapphire crystal over the dial features antireflective treatment on both sides, while an additional pane of sapphire in the screwed caseback affords a view of the movement, the ETA-based, self-winding Mido Caliber 80. As per the numeral in its name, this movement is derived from the Powermatic 80 platform used in many of Mido’s sister brands within the Swatch Group (i.e., Hamilton, Rado, and Tissot), which means its primary claim to fame is its 80-hour power reserve. But it’s also impressive in other technical aspects, including its use of a Nivachron balance spring for exceptional resistance to shocks and magnetic fields, as well as its level of decorative finishing, including the use of engravings and côtes de Genève on the rotor.

The Mido Multifort TV Big Date in rose-gold PVD steel with brown dial comes on a synthetic rubber strap that carries forward the tones of the dial for a very handsome overall package that somehow manages to exude both dressy style and casual, devil-may-care sportiness — to return to the parlance of ‘70s TV, let’s call it a little bit Fonzie, a little bit J.R. Ewing. The watch is priced at $1,310.