Summer Whites: Thoughts On All-White Watch Design

About a year ago, I noticed something about my own collection of watches I’d never specifically noticed before. Maybe I missed it because it was so obvious; maybe I missed it because it’s a very unsystematically assembled collection and aside from the fact that I seem to have an awful lot of dive watches, they don’t have much else in common. The one thing they do definitely have in common, however, is that almost without exception, the dials are black – there’s one orange dial (a Bulova re-issue Devil Diver) one cream dial (a Grand Seiko GMT) and one deep blue dial (a Grand Seiko LE) but there are absolutely no white dials whatsoever; even an IWC Portofino I picked up for about ten years ago has a black dial.

I have no data to support the suspicion I have that white dial watches are outsold by black and colored dial watches by a considerable margin, but the number of dive watches with black dials that are sold every year probably tells us something about which consumers prefer. I think that part of the problem is that a real white dial is a challenge from a design standpoint. Most watches with lighter colored dials are not actually white; they are some variation on off-white, which seems easier on the eyes and which integrates itself better with other elements of a watch design. White dials also, all other things being equal, feel more formal and less technical and this in a world where many prospective watch owners would prefer to feel more technical and less formal.

White, finally, feels like a seasonal choice. If you go beyond the question of dials and start to look at watches which verge on being almost entirely white, they begin to feel less formal and much more style – indeed, lifestyle oriented; with the lifestyle being in some way aquatic or at least, beachy.

As an example of a really all white watch, here’s a Swatch which is about as all-white as it gets, and there are a lot of things you could say about it but I don’t think anyone would call it formal. This is pushing all white pretty much as far as you can. The Bioceramic case is white, the dial (such as it is) is white, the strap is white, most of the components are white, and the canister for the quartz timing package might as well be white. The only color at all comes from the very slight variations in shades of white, and from the gears for the gear train that moves the hands. It is an extremely striking look but also a highly specific one and despite the fact that this is a very inexpensive watch, I think it would actually take a lot of style savvy to pull it off.

The only other problem is legibility. Like their compatriots, the all-black watches (like this black-on-black Seamaster, which is hard to read but also kind of cool) the more all-white a watch is, the more the lack of contrast starts to become problematic. And even leaving aside the question of legibility, I think that too little variation in tone and texture in an all-or-mostly-white watch can start to seem monotonous after a while, if not actually existentially unsettling; I mean, Moby Dick was white and Melville gave as a whole chapter on “The Whiteness Of The Whale.”

As an example of a watch that gives the impression of leaning hard into all-white but stopping just short of going all in, there’s this Panerai Luminor PAM 01226 Submersible Quaranta Quattro Bianco. Bianco is in the name and it is not hard to see why. The dial is white, lume is white, and the case is brushed stainless steel, which reads as white against the all-white – or almost all-white – dial.

Legibility here, as you’d hope from an ISO 6426 compliant diver’s watch, appears to be excellent. There’s just enough contrast to make the watch highly readable, and even the strap color is desaturated enough to emphasize the pale tones of the watch rather than contrast too jarringly.

Breitling has been doing quite a lot of work with colors lately, and it’s also been working with an almost all-white palette in the all white version of the Superocean 36.

Although it’s a smaller watch than the Panerai, it shares the same 300 meter water resistance rating and I think says “summer watch” pretty loud and clear. I can’t think of a better watch to wear if you’re really planning on spending what’s left of the summer in the water as much as possible – you could go from the beach, to boating, to actual recreational SCUBA diving without missing a beat; leaning into a style statement doesn’t mean you have to give anything away in specs.

This Jaquet Droz Grande Seconde is an example of another possible solution to the all-white problem. JD may be the currently least known Swatch Group luxury brands, at least in the US market, and their current catalog is pretty baroque, but they made a name for themselves originally through the production of some of the most incredibly complex and beautiful enamel dial watches on the market. Here, the case is ceramic; IWC pioneered the use of white ceramic for its Da Vinci watches, back in the 1980s, and it still uses the material in its current catalog. This Grande Seconde also shows how you can use a non-white material – in this case, mother-of-pearl, which is not pure white, but rather, iridescent, to produce the impression of whiteness without the flatness and lack of texture you might get in a plain white dial. The red of the large seconds hand offers contrast to the all-white scheme as well, not coincidentally on the most dynamic part of the design.

Here are another couple of examples of white ceramic with black accents in action, this time, courtesy Chanel. Up top is a J12 Paradoxe Caliber 12.1, which came out in 2020 and which is I think one of the cleverest pieces of watch design from Chanel. The black segments of the case, dial, and bezel look as if the watch has been partially dipped in black ink, and once again, the impression of whiteness is actually enhanced by the contrasting black elements. The movement, by the way, is made by Kenissi, which makes movements for Tudor as well; Chanel is a minority shareholder. How the watch is made is pretty interesting too.

The lower model is a stylized representation of none other than Coco Chanel, as seen in a striped sailor’s top in a famous photograph taken at her Villa la Pausa, in 1930. Again, this is indisputably and all-white, or mostly all-white, watch but it is really the black and off-white accents that make the design – and the charm of the animated figure’s arms, which function as the hour and minute hands.

Finally, we’ve got this ode to all-white from everyone’s unapologetically high-end, high-tech watchmaker, Richard Mille.

This is the RM 055 Bubba Watson White. The strap is white, the injected aluminum oxide bezel is white; the case middle and back are Grade 5 titanium, and the movement plates and bridges are Grade 5 titanium as well. In a lot of respects this couldn’t be more aesthetically different from the JD Grande Seconde but they have a couple of things in common, including the use of white ceramic in the case construction and the use of a red accent – in both watches, the seconds hand – to add a small but much-needed bit of color and contrast. Black is present – in the rehaut and the movement plates and bridges, as well – but again, it functions less as black and more as an exclamation point for all the white material. It’s a technically advanced watch as well, capable of resisting forces of up to 500 G, if you can swing a golf club that hard.

It seems obvious in retrospect, but the most successful all-white watches are not actually all-white. Instead, they use the visual impact of white materials as part of a larger composition. At their best such designs are something like minimalist Zen brush paintings – there is not a lot going on other than white, but what there is, is essential in defining the design and giving it character.