The rainbow watch, essentially a timepiece embellished with precious or semi-precious stones spanning the colours of the visible light spectrum, isn’t as much of a surprise today as it was even before the pandemic. It was John Mayer in an episode of Talking Watches 2 with watch website Hodinkee’s Ben Clymer who probably explained his own fascination for his Rolex Daytona Rainbow and rainbow watches in general the best.
He said: “I don’t quite know who the original target audience is if you’re just looking at the aesthetic... But there is something about them that when people see it in person they all kind of give in.... When these first came out everybody thought they were too much. The attitude on a Rainbow Daytona when it first came out was ‘Yuk, who would do that, who would go so far?’... And something happened... the joy of collecting superseded the craziness of the design of these watches.”
And that joy must be substantial for once the Daytona craze spread to Michael Jordan and Jonah Hill and Jay-Z, the rest of the watchmakers either joined in or were left out of the game. But now, a few years down the line, you have not one but an entire collection — from Audemars Piguet — that together comprise the rainbow. That is taking the game to another level. Two Royal Oak Selfwinding Rainbow sets “in 37mm and 41mm reinterpret the “traditional” rainbow watch to celebrate 50 years of Royal Oak design innovation. So Apart from ruby, blue sapphire and emerald, there are those embellished with tourmaline, topaz, tanzanite, tsavorite, orange spessartite, yellow chrysoberyl, and amethyst. Apart from clothes, the only thing that perhaps comes close to this is the Rolls-Royce collection belonging to an Arab oil sheikh painted in the colours of the rainbow. In terms of attitude at least, prospective buyers of the whole set probably come with the same mindset.
(L-R) The Rolex Daytona Cosmograph with multicoloured sapphires was the bling watch that stars like John Mayer and Michael Jordan brought into the clutch of regular wear; if the Daytona looked bling half a decade ago, then Hublot took the OTT game to the other end of the scale; Patek Philippe has recently jumped onto the bandwagon, but in a comparatively understated way, if you leave out the bright red strap that is
Between the time when the Daytona was considered ‘yuk’ and the multicoloured Royal Oak, there have been degrees of blinginess. The Hublot One Click Rainbow King Gold probably represents the pre-AP height of bling and there were others in the similar vein. It did not limit the colours to the bezel but went into the dial as well, although it spared the bracelet and came with a leather strap.
Largely traditionalist Patek Philippe, just a couple of days before the AP ‘set’ showcased its first rainbow, a self-winding ladies’ chronograph in its contemporary Aquanaut Luce collection. The Ref. 7968/300R-001 in rose gold was created especially for modern, active women. They probably consider it too blingy for men.
AP itself has previously made bezel-only rainbows as have lots of others, up and down the order. Paris-based watch customiser MAD does rainbows on Richard Mille timepieces and you can get even Casio rainbow watches in its G-Shock line.
The traditional watch has quietly made its transition from a utilitarian instrument to largely an item of fashion or jewellery. The rainbow watch makes it obvious up and down the price ladder.
