Summer is always a great pretext to ditch monochrome in favour of brighter, sunnier shades. With more and more watchmakers lavishing colour on their dials, the opportunity is too good to miss.

Every cloud has a silver lining. The disastrous impact of Covid-19 on the economy in general and the watch segment in particular is forcing brands to embrace the virtual world.

The online launch of Watches & Wonders 2020 spotlights what will be the first trends in watchmaking this year. Special mention goes to astronomical complications and skeleton watches, while women's collections get into shape with form watches. Sport-luxe is another of the year's big winners.

In watchmaking, nowhere is excellence more evident than in the complications that take a timepiece into another dimension, fuelled by the genius of brands always ready to reinvent themselves. As demonstrated at Watches & Wonders.

Recent years have seen the return of useful functions and even "small" complications. Practical as well as more affordable, they encourage creativity in an already crowded segment. We look at some of the watches revealed ahead of Watches & Wonders 2020.

It starts with the strap and ends with the full-blown experience of a bespoke timepiece. Personalising a watch has no other limit than the amount you're willing (or able) to spend.

Unless you're an Emo or a Goth, most people wouldn't be seen dead wearing a skull watch. And they would be wrong. Make no bones about it: today's skull watches are creative, innovative, high-mech pieces.

A rarely seen exercise in style ten years ago, skeleton watches are now part of the regular collections at brands intent on showing off their watches' inner beauty.

It comes alive after dark. Nothing can match its glow – except perhaps the odd jellyfish or octopus. Meet Swiss Super-Luminova, and its ever-expanding applications in watchmaking.