The move towards more sustainable watchmaking is gathering pace across the industry. Last year it was Panerai’s eSteel initiative (and the one-off eLab-ID concept watch) that dominated the headlines. At Watches and Wonders 2022, the brand builds on the success of the first wave with a trio of Submersible eSteel references in black, green and blue. Sixty per cent of the watch’s materials are recycled and it comes on a recycled PET textile strap. Each of the eSteel models is marked accordingly on the dial and can be spotted at a glance, thanks to the polished ceramic bezels, a relatively formal detail for the rugged Submersible range.

Ghost-spec watches attract a particular interest – witness the success of the Girard-Perregaux X Bamford Watch Department Laureato in white ceramic from 2020. They will never be mainstream, but that’s part of the appeal. It’s not a complete surprise to see this from IWC. Over the past couple of years in particular, it has developed the Pilot’s Chronograph as the canvas onto which it projects its most interesting and experimental designs. It’s still a head-turner to see any watch in this get-up, however. You don’t have to go back many years to remember a time when white watches weren’t seen as sufficiently masculine. We say it looks good, and that’s all that matters.

The Polaris can be seen in a similar light to the Alpine Eagle. Having been on the scene for a few years, the collection is maturing with a full roster of heavy-hitting horological references. This year, Jaeger-LeCoultre introduces a perpetual calendar movement to its sportiest design, a combination that has worked wonders for Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe. Cased in stainless steel rather than exotic metals, this won’t be anywhere near as pricey, but you can rest assured, with Jaeger-LeCoultre’s pedigree, that the workings within are top drawer. The calibre in question has been upgraded to show the year in the 12 o’clock subdial and has had its power reserve increased to 70 hours.

Blue has been the big new thing in watch design for long enough now that it has made itself at home. And yet, every now and then, the simple act of bringing this most versatile, approachable colour to an established design still has the power to stop us in our tracks. Cartier is a bit more sparing than most brands in its use of colour. Outside carefully curated limited editions, such as last year’s Tank Must reissues, it tends to cleave to the dependable staples of black, white, steel and gold, so this royal-blue Santos will be a talking point for sure. Get your name down now.

Last year, we fell so hard for the Hermès H08 that we named it our watch of the year. It didn’t break new ground on a technical front or usher in a generational shift in style. What impressed us so much was the way it met the mainstream men’s luxury sports watch brief with such panache and attention to detail. This year, Hermès follows up with an all-blue version, undoubtedly a more niche proposition, but full of life. The case is PVD-coated titanium with a brushed black bezel on a blue rubber strap with a dial that carefully balances the deep blue with delicate touches of white typography and, of course, Hermès’ signature orange.

Just… wow. It is easy to get a bit jaded with skeletonised dials now that they’re relatively ubiquitous. But it bears reminding that Vacheron Constantin is one of the few historic masters of this incredibly challenging craft, with expertise honed over centuries long before you could get precision machinery to do all the really tricky bits. And it shows: the Overseas Tourbillon Skeleton is absolutely stunning from every angle. Last year’s Perpetual Calendar was a high watermark, but stripping back all the date indications that requires and focussing on the tourbillon makes a huge difference. One of the real heavy hitters of this year’s show.

We know what you’re thinking – this must surely already exist. Back in the day – OK, 2016 – when it was still known as the Polo S, Piaget gave us blue, silver and dark grey dialled versions, and since then we have seen a black dial model with an ADLC black bezel to match, but never a straight-up black and steel combo. It speaks volumes about the watch world right now that green, blue and skeleton versions of the Polo are what we’ve come to expect, while a so-called base-model like this is released six years into the design’s lifespan. Like everything from shoes to sports cars, if it looks good at all, it looks good in black.

Despite it being impossible to hear the name without thinking of chilled beverages – be that the Long Island version of our youth or something a bit more easy-going – Montblanc’s 1858 Iced Sea is an early contender for most intriguing launch of Watches and Wonders. In terms of where it sits for Montblanc, it’s a logical extension of the 1858 range that ventures deeper than ever into the world of exploration, following in the intrepid footsteps of the Geosphere line, and the closest the brand has come to offering a rival to watches like the TAG Heuer Aquaracer. But as an object in its own right it brings something new to the genre, thanks to that dial: a cracked, fissured pattern that resembles the deep, ancient walls of an icy crevasse.

We have expounded previously on the benefits of wearing a square watch – the TL:DR of which is to say that it marks one out as a sophisticated, confident type unafraid to buck the trend. If that sounds like you, your options just increased with this new take on Baume & Mercier’s Hampton. Sleeker and sharper than what’s gone before, we’re particularly drawn to that multi-textured sunburst and matte dial (doesn’t it look like it’s playing a trick on your mind?) and the Milanese mesh bracelet. Better yet, this mid-size Hampton comes with a quick-change strap system so you can chop that in for leather should the mood take you.

Roger Dubuis introduced us to the Excalibur Monobalancier earlier this year, in an eye-catching white case that you might assume was ceramic, but in fact consists of something called Mineral Composite Fibre; lighter than carbon fibre but more machinable than ceramic. Now for Watches and Wonders, the “dark side” equivalent shows itself: a menacing, impressive piece of micro-engineering. Mechanically, it uses the same in-house micro-rotor automatic calibre RD820SQ, which is notable for extending the brand’s commitment to skeletonisation to the automatic winding rotor itself, seen here at 11 o’clock. The rotor needs a certain mass to do its job, so the more you take away, the denser what remains needs to be. It’s just one example of the unseen work that goes into making a watch look this different.