Women were buying bolder, sportier watches for their assertive look, while the playful diamonds expressed the feminine side of their personality. Very quickly the innovative white steel and diamond sports watch has become a classic, reinterpreted and updated regularly – particularly in the past year as women have been drawn back to the bold sporty designs with that edge of luxury.

On Her Watch: Timepieces to add style as well as substance

Chopard has refreshed and refined the Happy Sport using a hi-tech steel alloy from recycled materials, with a diamond-set bezel for two limited editions, both sporting the watchmaker’s in-house automatic movement. It also pays homage to the original with three new creations in 33mm and 36mm quartz models with three or five dancing diamonds, or a 36mm with seven and a mechanical self-winding movement, all in a wardrobe of blues, from sky to midnight, for jeans to cocktail dressing.

Many of the sporty watch updates are infused with colour, whether on the dial or as a glammed-up gem-set rainbow around the bezel – an uplifting look that became particularly popular for men’s and women’s timepieces during the pandemic.

Rainbows, rocks and Nashville: watch brands’ launches for the holiday season

Rolex has added a splash of colour to its classic sporty Oyster Perpetual Datejust 31, creating a floral motif dial in azzurro blue with each flower punctuated with a diamond. The colour and motif feminise the hi-tech oystersteel case, a corrosion-resistant material part of the Rolex manufacture since 1985.

Zenith’s Defy collection, launched in 2020 and tailored exclusively for women in the growing sports-chic market, now features an orange gradient coloured Midnight Sunset guilloche engraved enamel dial, or the blue green of the Midnight Borealis, with diamond bezel and hour markers. They come with a steel bracelet and a quick strap-change mechanism with sustainably made leather, textile and rubber straps.

Hublot similarly provides a quick-change system and coloured straps for its Big Bang One Click model, a steel and diamond design in 33mm, 39mm and 42mm sizes. The calf-leather straps come in 12 clickable, changeable colours to suit your mood and wardrobe.

The Solo Lady K is British watchmaker Bremont’s bestseller with its sporty steel bracelet, mother-of-pearl dial and diamond dot indices. New this autumn is their Maya, a 37mm mechanical watch in steel and rose gold, again with that iridescent Tahitian mother-of-pearl dial. This watch is elegant but also practical with its hardened scratch-resistant steel case and water resistance to 100 metres.

Steel is traditionally associated with sports watches and the original luxury classic is Audemars Piguet’s Gérald Genta designed Royal Oak, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. New iterations include a Royal Oak 34mm self-winding model in steel and diamonds with the signature tapisserie dial. However, the watchmaker has gone further, creating a limited-edition black ceramic version with jewellery collaborator Carolina Bucci. This has a rainbow-coloured tapisserie effect on the sapphire plate, which has a gold metallised back to create a mirror effect. The culmination of the celebrations though is the Royal Oak pavé-set limited edition in one of the seven colours of the rainbow, using baguette-cut precious gemstones like tanzanites, pink tourmalines and orange spessartites.

Gem-setting takes these sporty designs to a space where haute horlogerie meets high jewellery, where a practical design is glammed up to make it look precious and very special. Breguet’s gold Marine Dame is a particular example.

Bling bust? Rolex is entering the second-hand market for the first time

The Lady Marine collection was originally launched in 2019 because clients wanted a female version of the brand’s iconic nautical timepiece. Two years later the guilloche wave patterned dial was upgraded to the current Poseidonia design of Marine Dame, a precious mother-of-pearl marquetry version with invisible dial. There are no hour markers because the dial is set with precious baguette-cut stones in the form of fronds of seaweed.

A statement-making sparkling bezel is proving gender-neutral in sports watches now. Rolex surrounded its muscular Oyster Perpetual Yacht-Master 40 with a pink, purple and blue sapphire bezel and Ulysse Nardin has caught on to the trend with its newly released Lady Diver 39mm automatic and masculine Blast Tourbillon, cheerfully framed by colourful gemstones. The Lady Diver Rainbow is inspired by the iridescent rainbow colours of silicium, a metalloid used in several of the watchmaker’s movements. The dazzling watch is designed to reach depths of up to 300 metres, but the fashion-flavoured flourish of gems could be what will win over even extreme-sport purists.

While steel is the first choice of a sports watch, ceramic and aluminium are proving rugged enough to be up to the job. Chanel’s J12 and the Royal Oak are both ceramic while Bulgari reintroduced its edgy, urban-style Aluminium a couple of years ago. The design with its self-winding mechanical movement originated in 1998, and in 2020 was relaunched with an aluminium and titanium case with DLC coating. Among the new releases this autumn is a collaboration with Japanese artist Sorayama, to create a shimmering silver 3D optical-patterned dial that looks very sports-chic.

Devil in the details: 6 most stunning intricate watches of 2022

Elegant, sporty and always innovative is Chanel’s J12, a unisex design that is often given a quirky spin with limited edition dials, with the latest Calibre 12.1 and Calibre 3.1 Mademoiselle models featuring images of Coco Chanel herself. However, the new 33mm Calibre 12.2 movement comes in the simpler matt black or white ceramic, with or without diamonds, for a sportier rather than couture aesthetic for this design icon.