Why Colourful Watches?
Tool watches are necessarily rank-and-file in their aesthetic. The same goes for any kind of tool: power-drills, spanners, cameras; the form-follows-function formula rules when it comes to purpose-built objects. But we like colour, especially bright colorful watches. Today I’d like to explore the curious reasons why…
Classic tool watches in monochromatic black
Biology… psychology… colour
Humans have tri-chromatic colour vision. That is, we perceive the world in three main shades - blue, green and red - because there are three types of cone cell on our retina which encode each of the three. We can therefore detect colours from purple, to blue, through green, yellow, and then eventually red on the spectrum of visible light. However, we do not have the hardware to detect anything less than purple (ultraviolet), nor can we detect anything beyond red (infrared) on the spectrum. Some animals can see ultraviolet light, some can see infrared, and horses see in two main colours (blue and yellow; bi-chromatic vision).
The bulk of cone cells on our retina are equipped to pick up green light. That is, we can discriminate between more shades of green than any other colour, particularly useful for detecting predators or food in foliage. Predators might be an orange tiger among green grass or a poisonous frog with bright-yellow blotches, while food might be a yellow banana or a bright-red strawberry. Without our ‘hardwire’ being set-up to detect bright colours, we’d starve or be eaten.
But deeper in our evolution, colour also implies status. Several bird species show off the colours or their feathers or collect colorful objects to attract a mate. Even though we aren’t birds, higher levels of carotenoid pigments (orangey-red pigments found in fruit and vegetables) makes our skin ‘glow’, making us more attractive. This is supposedly because high carotenoid implies better health and immunity to disease. You can increase carotenoid pigment by eating colorful fruit, creating an evolutionary mechanism which ties health with sexual-selection. So, in a way, colour begets colour. Expanding on this evolutionary mechanism, the colour red has been shown to increase arousal and aggression in imitating the colour of blood-flow in skin which happens when we are aroused or ready to fight. A study found that Olympic Judo competitors usually performed better in competition when their uniform was red rather than blue or white.
Colourful objects capture our attention because we are set up for them to do so. Our attraction to jewelry, including a wristwatch, is because we have a proclivity to notice and fixate on bright, shiny and colourful objects, be it for our diet, vitality or even our sexual selections.
An Explanation of Colourful Watches
These ideas may explain why we like a bright dial on a watch. For this, I think of the Rolex Oyster Perpetuals with ‘Stella’ dials. Are we attracted to the red dial version insofar as it mimics a juicy apple, or because it evokes vitality… or even sexual arousal?
And take the new line or fully jewel-set Audemars Piguet Royal Oaks in dazzling shades to celebrate the model’s 50th anniversary. These pieces, I would bet, are attractive for the stunt factor; they’re to appeal to our bird-brain obsession with showing off bright shiny things. (That final sentence made it sound like I don’t like the new lineup from AP, but let me just clarify that I think they’re fucking awesome).
We can also explain bright colours that are used in the design of some tool watches. Take the Doxa Sub-300 dive watch from the 60’s - the ‘Professional’ model has a bright orange dial, since orange is the only colour which isn’t unsaturated by the blue depths of the sea, making it the most legible while diving. Other brands like AP and Breitling have used orange dive-watch dials to the same effect. The general salience or the colour orange means it’s used in other safety systems, and Apple calls the orange button on the new Apple Watch Ultra ‘international orange’.
Ultimately, the tool watch is pretty bland when it comes to looks, but there’s reason to love a colourful watch too, and even reason to use colour for function as well as form.