Pink gets a bad rep – just ask a parent. A century of heavy-handed gender stereotyping has burdened it with some cultural baggage that’s been hard to shift, but fundamentally it’s a colour like any other and this summer it has finally arrived in the watch world. Well, outside the patronising “shrink it and pink it” approach under which so-called ladies’ watches have laboured for years, that is. Here are five unisex designs that embrace pink as a considered choice, rather than a wacky novelty or lazy default. From coral to cerise, bubble-gum to blush, it’s time to give pink a chance.

For as long as I can remember, Panerai’s story has been about history. The Radiomir and Luminor case shapes are two of the most recognisable in all of watchmaking – up there with the Tank, Monaco or Submariner – they have been the foundations on which the modern-day brand was built. These cushion-shaped silhouettes, one with and one without the signature locking crown-guard mechanism, they are Panerai, its very essence. Very few watches – a tiny number, in the grand scheme of things – bearing the Panerai name were anything other than some flavour of Radiomir or Luminor.

When it comes to watch advice, what everyone wants to know is, “What’s a good investment?” To which the stock response goes, “There’s no such thing, unless you’ve scored on the waiting list for a platinum Patek Philippe that’ll never leave its polythene bag. Buy with your heart not your head, dummy.”

Two-and-a-half years ago, in September 2019, the independent Swiss brand Oris released a future-facing addition to its venerable aviation watch collections, the ProPilot X Calibre 115 (or PPX 115 for short). Made from titanium, its angular, industrial look suggested jet engines and stealth planes, while the view through the dial to the skeletonised movement was like peering into a piece of heavy machinery. It was aggressive and quirky. Mainstream it certainly was not. If you’d told me then that this hulking piece of techno-chic gear would, by 2022, have morphed into a slinky, unisex, pink-dialled watch for the masses, I’d have given you short shrift. But, as an illustration of how watch design is evolving on the other side of the pandemic, the 2019 PPX 115 and the watch Oris dropped earlier this year, the PPX 400 (or ProPilot X Calibre 400), offer a handy before-and-after comparison.

Pink gets a bad rep – just ask a parent. A century of heavy-handed gender stereotyping has burdened it with some cultural baggage that’s been hard to shift, but fundamentally it’s a colour like any other and this summer it has finally arrived in the watch world. Well, outside the patronising “shrink it and pink it” approach under which so-called ladies’ watches have laboured for years, that is. Here are five unisex designs that embrace pink as a considered choice, rather than a wacky novelty or lazy default. From coral to cerise, bubble-gum to blush, it’s time to give pink a chance.

For as long as I can remember, Panerai’s story has been about history. The Radiomir and Luminor case shapes are two of the most recognisable in all of watchmaking – up there with the Tank, Monaco or Submariner – they have been the foundations on which the modern-day brand was built. These cushion-shaped silhouettes, one with and one without the signature locking crown-guard mechanism, they are Panerai, its very essence. Very few watches – a tiny number, in the grand scheme of things – bearing the Panerai name were anything other than some flavour of Radiomir or Luminor.