A piece of summer wrist candy should, on occasion, be an easy thing. It’s always worth thinking about investment pieces that channel the season’s warmth and cheer, to be sure, but just as worthwhile to have something fun and new to lift the spirits. That’s where the new four-piece Painted Paradise collection by Swatch comes into its own.
The Swiss watch brand—best known for revolutionising the watch world with quartz timepieces as affordable as they are stylish—is tapping into a tropical state of mind for summer. It’s come up with four vibrant designs in saturated, juicy shades that look and feel like escapist colour stories.
Turquoise, for example, brings to mind clear waves lapping against powder-soft sand; zesty yellow-green evokes the freshness of lemons and limoncello on an Amalfi terrace; bright pink summons up the picture and redolence of summer fruits and flowers bursting with life; and a sultry purple makes one dream of exotic blooms perfuming the air as a dinner table is set. Mood boosting talismans, in a way, that can be strapped to the wrist.
The watches in this new Painted Paradise collection come from the Skin line, one of Swatch’s design icons. It’s one of the brand’s thinner, more minimalist styles (all the better for putting colour and pattern on it), and is crafted from a lightweight biosourced material so that it feels nearly weightless on the wrist.
An interesting detail in the collection is how Swatch has opted to keep the dials, traditionally the canvas for design interpretations, clean and understated. Each of the dials on the four colourways features a sun-brush effect, with matching tonal hour and minute markers, and hands that glow in the dark. The designs are, instead, printed on the silicone straps, in gauzy washes of colour that bring to mind slow, idle passing clouds in the sky. Heavy on tropical vibes, but light in spirit—just the thing for a summertime pick-me-up.
