Whether cobalt, aquamarine, topaz or good old navy, watch dials are, much like Picasso, going through a blue phase. Less foreboding and more characterful than standard black, but without the ‘pop’ of brighter shades, the blues – as in menswear, so as in watches – work with anything, and offset steel particularly well. And this nod to the 70s look as masculine as ever.

Montblanc 1858 Geosphere Automatic

The dial of this 42mm, titanium and steel watch shows a subtle gradation from blue to black as though on a glacier or at the edge of space. That’s appropriate since the Geosphere – with its two rotating, Super-LumiNova-lit domes – nods to the Seven Summit challenge to climb each continent’s highest peaks. Also, appropriately, it dons a world time complication. 

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IWC SCHAFFHAUSEN + Orlebar Brown Portuguese

IWC’s collaboration watch with menswear label Orlebar Brown takes inspiration from distant travel, being a Yacht Club automatic flyback chronograph edition of its famed Portugieser line, itself inspired by Portugal’s pioneering mariners. Fittingly then, the dial of this handsome, 44.6mm piece comes in what IWC calls ‘maritime blue’. 

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Vacheron Constantin Fiftysix Automatic Complete Calendar

Vacheron’s Geneva Seal-certified Fiftysix finds inspiration from yesteryear, particularly a model launched back in 1956 – though its moon phase is accurate, without adjustment, over a much longer period, 122 years to be precise. With day, date and month display you’ll be sure to know just about any time with this navy-dialled, 40mm beauty.

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Piaget Polo S Automatic 42mm

Two-tone blue, striated dial, two sub-dials in another shade of blue and an alligator strap in, you guessed it, blue again – Piaget’s Polo S Automatic certainly embraces the colour. Even the automatic calibre 1160P movement has a touch of it. The exhibition window on the case back reveals the rotor in blue too. 

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Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris Chronograph

No less bold is the blue dial on this mid-century-styled 42mm chronograph, complete with gorgeous angular indices and squared off numerals at 12 and 6. Three different surface treatments give the dial a distinctive depth without distracting from the clarity of the display, thanks to strong contrast with white Super-LumiNova-filled, baton hands. 

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Panerai Luminor Blu Mare

With a heritage in supplying timepieces to WW2-era divers in the Italian Navy, clarity is all too important to the masters at Panerai. Thanks to its blue dial, this iconic Luminor, with its 300m depth rating and signature crown lock, manages to look elegant, despite its 15.65mm deep heft – ideal for those venturing underwater.

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