DIAL FIRST

Turquoise is not a Rolex colour. It belongs to Tiffany boxes and 1970s Californian cars, and putting it on a yellow gold Daytona should not work. It works. The lacquer sits against black subdials and a black ceramic bezel, and the warmth of the gold stops the whole thing from reading as costume. Released as part of the Daytona's sixtieth anniversary refresh, this is the reference that made people who had stopped paying attention to the Daytona look again. On Oysterflex it is lighter on the wrist than the bracelet version and considerably more direct about what it is. Brand new, 2026, box and papers. There is no quiet way to wear it, which is the correct amount of ambition for a gold chronograph.

Cartier revived the Must line in 2021 with three dials in flat lacquer, stripped of numerals and markings, carrying nothing but the signature. The green is the one people remember. It is a single field of colour inside a Tank case, which sounds like a gimmick until you see it and understand that the Tank was always a shape first and a watch second. Louis Cartier drew it in 1917 and the proportions have not needed defending since. At 25.5mm across, on a matching green strap, it is the smallest watch in this edit and the one most likely to be noticed. Quartz, which keeps the case thin. Excellent condition, 2021, box and papers. The least expensive piece here and the one that commits hardest to its colour.

Purple is the hardest colour to put on a watch. It reads as costume almost immediately, and most brands that try it end up somewhere near a novelty. Patek got it right by going dark, laying the lacquer deep enough that it only shows its hand in direct light and otherwise sits close to black. In rose gold with a diamond-set bezel, the case does quiet work here, because the rectangle keeps the colour disciplined. Thirty millimetres, quartz, the same case Patek drew in 1999 and has never needed to redraw. Excellent condition, 2025, box and papers. This is the piece in the edit that changes most between the photograph and the wrist, and it changes in the right direction.

The Reverso case was designed in 1931 so that polo players could flip the dial away and protect it. Nearly a century later the flip is decoration, but the proportions that came out of that brief have outlasted almost everything else from the period. The Tribute Monoface uses the 1930s dimensions rather than the modern ones, which is why it looks correct in a way that larger Reversos do not. The blue is sunray brushed, so it moves through the full range from near black to bright across a single turn of the wrist, and the rectangular case gives that movement a long axis to travel along. Manual wind, 27.4mm across, on blue leather. Brand new, 2026, box and papers. Of the eight dials here, this is the one that behaves differently every time you look down.

Brown is a difficult sell and Patek did not care. The golden brown opaline on this Nautilus is not brown the way a chocolate dial is brown, it is closer to bronze, and against rose gold it removes almost all contrast between dial and case. The result is a watch that reads as a single warm object rather than a dial mounted in a bracelet. Genta's 1976 case was always an argument about continuity of line, so this is the version that follows the original logic furthest. At 35.2mm it is the smaller Nautilus, which suits the effect, since the eye takes in the whole thing at once. Excellent condition, 2020, box and papers. The most expensive watch in this edit and the least interested in announcing it.

In 1943 Audemars Piguet made a chronograph with curved lugs and sold almost none of them. In 2020 they rebuilt it. The [Re]Master01 keeps the original proportions and the champagne dial, adds a modern movement, and puts the whole thing in a steel case with rose gold bezel, crown and pushers, which is close to the mix the 1943 watch used. Champagne is a colour most brands reach for to soften a design. Here it does the opposite, because the blued hands and applied Arabic numerals sit on top of it with almost no help from contrast, and the dial has to hold everything itself. Limited to 500 pieces. Excellent condition, 2020, box and papers. The only dial in this edit that is a reproduction rather than an invention, and it is better for it.

Every other watch in this edit is an argument for colour. This one is the counter-argument. The Top Gun case is black ceramic, the dial is matte black, the strap is black textile, and the only things permitted to interrupt it are white numerals, a red power reserve tip and a date. Nothing reflects. The original Big Pilot was a navigation instrument built in the 1940s to be read at a glance in bad conditions, and stripping the colour out returns it to exactly that function. Ceramic also means it will look the same in ten years, which is not true of every lacquer dial on this page. Automatic, seven day power reserve, excellent condition, 2017, box and papers. Choosing no colour is still choosing, and this is what it looks like done properly.

Rolex spent decades making the Oyster Perpetual the most restrained thing in the catalogue. The celebration dial ended that. Bubbles of red, green, blue, pink and yellow scattered across lacquer, on the most basic watch the brand makes, with no date and no complication to distract from it. The reaction split the room, which was the point. Two years on, the argument has settled in the dial's favour. It is the only Rolex that people photograph rather than check. At 41mm in Oystersteel it wears like every other OP, which means the dial is doing all of the work and knows it. Brand new, 2026, box and papers. If you have been waiting for a Rolex that does not look like everyone else's Rolex, this is the whole answer in one dial.