THE WATCH WORLD has long been ruled by restraint, as oceans of monochrome time-pieces will attest. Then came lockdown, and with it a craving for something lighter and brighter. Leading the charge was Rolex, whose vibrant 2020 Oyster Perpetuals—coral, yellow, pink, and turquoise—revived the playful spirit of its 1970s Stella dials and kick-started something akin to a rainbow revolution.
Suddenly, color wasn’t viewed as a novelty, with the likes of Oris, Omega, and Breitling letting their freak flags fly. Once considered risky—or, worse, cheap—a pop of color on the wrist now transcends gender and category, softening austere designs and injecting fun, optimism, and a bucketload of sales into an industry supposedly mired in understatement.
Urwerk UR-150 Blue Scorpion
The original UR-150 Scorpion retrograde wandering hours watch was a monochromatic masterpiece.…
