Ressence has launched a new version of its Type 1 Slim, and let’s face it, you wouldn’t miss it in a crowd. This is by some distance the brightest, loudest, most eye-catching watch the young Belgian brand has ever created. (In fact, it’s inspired by a one-off Type 3 that it created last year for a charity auction.) The dial is a glorious shade of red, matched by a rubber strap – and the receding nature of the Type 1 Slim’s titanium case is such that, really, it looks like the whole watch is almost glowing. And it got us thinking: why is red traditionally so much more unusual on a watch, and why are we starting to see so much of it right now?

You can start by considering the watch industry’s inherent conservatism. It’s only in the past 10 years that we’ve seen a blue dial become standard on most mainstream models. But if we’re talking about trends in men’s watches, the available colours – blue, grey, brown, black, even green – still sit within a stereotypical palette for a man’s wardrobe. Red, where it has been used by watch brands down the years, has tended to appear in collections marketed at women.

But what about the 1970s, we hear you ask? Wasn’t that the time when watchmaking let its hair down? To an extent yes, but red dials are still rare. The wild and wonderful designs of the 1960s and 1970s evolved from sports watches and other colours ruled the roost.

Red isn’t desirable on a dive watch, because it’s the colour with the longest wavelength. Red light carries less energy, therefore finds it hard to penetrate the ocean’s depth: at 100m, no red light will reach you, and your watch will just look black. Not so handy if you’re relying on it to tell you how much air you’ve got left.

Other tool watches – particularly racing chronographs, but sometimes pilot’s watches as well – used red, but sparingly, relying on a tiny touch for the tip of the seconds hand, or to mark other important details. Painting the whole dial red has been known; see Omega’s “Schumacher” Speedmaster – but it never really caught on.

In truth, a lot of the red watches that we see now were inconceivable until recently. The production techniques simply didn’t exist to colour a watch any hue you liked. The kind of polymers used by the likes of Richard Mille, for example, are cutting-edge stuff. It took Hublot years to work out the right chemical mix to produce its ceramic-cased Big Bang Red Magic. To change the ceramic’s colour, pigments are added to the raw powder, but the firing process – superheating it at great pressure, moulding it into the shape of the watch – is liable to burn the pigment, resulting in a dull, muddy colour rather than the vibrant red you’re looking for.

So, what’s changed? Well, men’s style, for one thing. The rise of streetwear and the eruption of more flamboyant, unfettered designs is slowly having an effect on the watch world. We’re more comfortable with a bold, attention-grabbing watch – that used to mean a big watch, but these days it can just as easily mean a bright one. Gendered ideas of colour are changing rapidly, too. And last but not least, there is no ignoring the importance of east Asian tastes.

In China, red traditionally denotes happiness, beauty, good fortune and success. Brands have long acknowledged the colour’s popularity with regional limited editions (even the ultra-traditional Patek Philippe produces bright red editions for Singapore customers in particular). It’s just in the past few years that regional tastes are starting to be felt globally. Particular countries have often dictated design trends – for a while it was Italy and today, we see that influence from tastemakers in China, Hong Kong and Singapore in particular.

As for that Ressence, it’s only going to be produced until the end of 2021, so grab it while you can. But we wouldn’t bet against seeing red more often in the next couple of years. And not just because we’ve missed out on the latest release.