Watches this year continue to bring colour to our wrists with ever-increasing flamboyance. Piaget’s automatic Limelight Gala timepiece originated in the 70s with its integrated gold case and bracelet, and is celebrated this year with six new limited editions, three of which mark the Sunrise, Zenith and Sunset of the sun’s journey in gradient colours of blue, yellow and pink sapphires and snow-set diamond dials. However, it is the Precious Rainbow that really captivates.

“It represents the perfect fusion between the arts of watchmaking and jewellery,” says Piaget CEO Chabi Nouri, who points out that this is the first time that they’ve created a rainbow setting for a timepiece. “Sourcing progressively sized, coloured gemstones of this calibre is extremely challenging.”

Creative energy flows through Richard Mille’s zingy homage to the 70s and its disco queens with the glamorous new RM 71-02 Automatic Tourbillon Talisman. There is a thrilling theatricality to this 10-piece collection, which makes much of the art deco detailing of 2018 RM 71-01 by smothering the signature tonneau-shaped case with sparkling rainbow-coloured sapphires, tsavorites, rubies and amethysts.

“I was in a Studio 54 state of mind – listening to disco, funk and R&B,” says Cécile Guenat, director of creation and development at Richard Mille. Hence each design is named after fashionable nightclub favourites, like Donna Summer and Grace Jones, and express their raw energy.

“It is a fascinating playing field,” says Chastaing, of working at Chanel. The brand “has a unique definition of watchmaking: the expertise of our watchmaker is an art form from which I benefit in the same ways as if I collaborate with a jeweller, engraver, embroiderer, enameller or a glove maker”.

 The jeweller’s art is encapsulated in a landmark high jewellery cuff from Bulgari, whose expertise in coloured gems and gem-setting almost completely disguises the timepiece on the Serpenti Misteriosi Cleopatra. The Egyptian cuff is a tribute to Elizabeth Taylor’s role in the 1963 film Cleopatra, filmed in Rome; it was also the film star’s introduction to the Bulgari brand. You can forgive Bulgari’s irreverence to the function of telling the time in this magnificent expression of craftsmanship.

Then there’s the perfectly legible Allegra cocktail watch with its flirty pop-out colour, which perfectly illustrates Bulgari’s Roman spirit and Mediterranean inspiration.

There has been an explosive use of colour right across the watch world. The Galaxie Secrete timepiece from the Van Cleef & Arpels Sous les Étoiles high jewellery collection tucks its dial behind a swirl of diamonds and coloured sapphires. Cartier’s Metiers d’Art collection features the Panthère Songeuse watch, with the feline resting on a case of diamonds and shades of blue enamel.

Colour also pulsates through the multi-gem model of Gem Dior, a new collection by Victoire de Castellane. The name is a play on “J’aime Dior” and the design is fresh and graphic, with different hard stones set jauntily off-kilter. What’s not to love about this watch, or any of these glamorous uplifting designs?

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