Bodies of water have long inspired artists across disciplines. In horology, that relationship began as a technical challenge: mastering water resistance to protect the movement and preserve the dial. Those early innovations gave rise to the dive watch—an essential tool in the era before modern diving equipment.
Designed for legibility underwater, early dive watches favored high-contrast dials and bold forms. Over time, those functional codes evolved into an aesthetic language of their own.
Today, many aquatic-themed timepieces are less about function and more about form—capturing the movement, light, and depth of water itself.
To achieve this, watchmakers turn to specialized materials and métiers d’art techniques that mimic the shifting tones and textures of the natural world. The result is a category of watches that feel less like practical instruments and more like art pieces. Here, we’ve curated seven standouts, each showcasing a distinct approach to translating water into form.
Lacquer: The Rolex Oyster Perpetual Turquoise Lacquer Dial
Rolex’s Oyster Perpetual has served as a milestone model through every evolution of aquatic watches.The Oyster case, introduced in 1926, was the world’s first water-resistant case thanks to a hermetically sealed design and the addition of a screw-down crown. This construction has gone on to set the standard for water-resistant designs ever since. Nearly a century later, in 2020, The Crown debuted two new versions of the iconic Oyster Perpetual with dials rendered in turquoise lacquer: the Reference 126000in 36mm and the Reference124300 in 41mm. These models once again set the tone and established the trend for this sea-inspired color to rise in prominence and popularity across the industry at large.
Guilloche: The Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF Chronograph Mineral Blue
When it comes to techniques with a rare ability to capture the organic quality of nature,guilloche is at the top of the list. Guilloche is a centuries-old modality, originating in the 1500s as a decorative engraving method first used on soft materials like wood andivory. The machining was later adapted to harder materials, like metal, and adopted bywatchmakers in the 1600s.
Still, this engraving technique wouldn’t become widely popularized until a century later, thanks to Abraham-Louis Breguet’s use on his watch dials. Since then, we have seen this method employed by countless brands to achieve a wave design. With modern machining, the patterns can be modified and more nuanced, as we see in Parmigiani Fleurier’s Tonda PF Chronograph Mineral Blue. Here, the micro-pattern of the guilloche is meant to evoke the ripple effect of wind over water, executed in a soft blue hue.
Lasers: The Omega Seamaster Diver 300M
Laser cutting is the modern evolution of guilloche. While the techniques are different,the result is somewhat similar, with the ability to create a consistent pattern and textureacross a surface. As you might guess, contemporary laser cutting results in a bitshallower and more uniform designwith a distinctly more machined look than traditional guilloche.
The uniformity created by the use of lasers lends itself to more utilitarian pieces, like dive watches, as opposed to the luxury sport watch, like we see in the Tonda PFchrono. Omega’s iconic Sea master is the perfect example of a multifaceted aquatic time piece: one that embodies the robust technical qualities of dive watches andshowcases aesthetic techniques evoking the water itself. This diver boasts an impressive 300 meters of water resistance and features a laser-cut dial in blue with the appearance of water rippling across the surface.
Natural Stone: The Patek Philippe Twenty-4 and Nautilus
Natural stone is a clear way to ground a design in the natural elements, and mother-of-pearl has long been a material of choice when it comes to watch dials. Today, stone dials are having a major moment, inspiring the use of a wide variety of different natural stones. Still, mother-of-pearl continues to be a go-to, particularly for classic and timeless designs that will transcend the trend. The beauty of mother-of-pearl lies in its ability to play with the light and reflect the full spectrum of soft colors, like the sun’s reflection on water.
It’s tough to choose a single brand with a notable execution of mother-of-pearl dials, but Patek Philippe stands out for its use of the most prestigious and technically refined mother-of- pearl dials, accomplished both in its techniques to cut and finish the material and in its sourcing of high-grade mineral stones. We predominantly see mother-of-pearl dials in Patek’s dressier pieces, like its complicated models or collections like the Twenty-4. However, in some select limited editions, we have seen these stone dials used in Patek’s signature diver: the Nautilus.
Enameling: The H. Moser & Cie Endeavour Tourbillon Concept Turquoise Enamel
Enameling is one of the most prominent métiers d’art methods used in watchmaking for centuries. Thanks to the wide range of colors and techniques using enamel as the medium, watch makers have long been drawn to the craft to recreate both intricate, ife like scenes and more abstract sensory experiences.
H. Moser & Cie largely leans on the latter, employing the fumé approach in many of its watches, like the Endeavour Tourbillon Concept Turquoise Enamel. To create this dial, the brand first hammers the metal base for depth and texture. Then, layers of pigment across a full range of turquoise—from the palest hue to the deepest, near black one—are meticulously applied in an ombre fashion to create the seamlessly graded fumé effect mimicking shallow waters of the coast to the depths of the ocean.
Stamping and Hand Painting: The Grand Seiko Spring Drive SLGA007 Lake Suwa
Grand Seiko is a brand that has become synonymous with drawing inspiration from the natural landscape surrounding their facilities in Japan and translating this to its timepieces. We see this take many forms—from snowcapped mountains to budding cherry blossoms, and, of course, bodies of water. This version of Grand Seiko’s iconic Spring Drive honors Lake Suwa, a scenic destination situated in the Kiso Mountains that marks the largest lake in the central region of Nagano Prefecture, Japan. The dial is intended to mimic a very specific moment in time, echoing the gentle ripples of Lake Suwa at dawn. The design is produced through a painstaking, multi-stage process involving specialized stamping to create the texture, followed by intricate painting, plating, and finishing to achieve its deep blue, undulating, and reflective appearance.
Transparent Sapphire: The Hublot Big Bang Unico Water Blue Sapphire
Lastly, we come to a unique and decidedly modern approach to recreating that pleasing blue essence of water. Here, we see the sensibility span beyond the dial to the full construction of the watch. While Hublot was not the first brand to create sapphire watches, the Maison is largely credited with popularizing the material in its trademarkBig Bang collection. Hublot debuted its first sapphire model in 2016, and over the past decade, we have seen the material take on new colors and designs. With the limited edition Big Bang Unico Water Blue Sapphire, we get the brand’s proprietary, scratch-resistant blue sapphire material rendered in a carefully pigmented shade designed to evoke the color of tropical, crystal-clear ocean water.
