It’s almost surprising it hasn’t happened before. There have been Black Bay chronographs in champagne, white, and black. This summer it even unveiled one with a dial in Pepto Bismol-pink in collaboration with David Beckham’s Inter Miami CF football team. However, there has never been a Black Bay chronograph in blue – until now.

Tudor is synonymous with blue. Dating back to the 1960s, with the Submariner “Snowflake” in 1968 and into the ’70s with the Oysterdate “Montecarlo”, the maker was creating watches in sea-drenched hues at a time when many brands were sticking to a more limited palette. So entwined are the brand and the colour that “Tudor Blue” has now evolved beyond just a shade description and become a term for Tudor’s aesthetic characteristics and style.

This new edition of the Black Bay chronograph has those characteristics in spades. Tudor has always had a magpie’s eye when it comes to delving into its back catalogue. Rather than straight-from-the-past reissues with very little changed except the movement, it selects. It brings together different complementary elements from its archives to create an amalgam that looks retro but refreshed. When it comes to chronographs, Tudor has plenty of design details from which to choose. It has been making them since 1970, when it launched its Tudor Oysterdate. At 39mm, it was large for its time and set out the brand’s stall when it came to making sizeable, sturdy tool watches with real wrist presence.

For this watch, the one interesting timing quirk Tudor has taken from its original chronograph is that the counter at three o’clock is a 45-minute one as opposed to 30 or 60 minutes. Watch wiki can’t decide if this is for legibility reasons – a 60-minute sub dial can be hard to read – or because it’s the same length as a football match half. Either way, it’s something novel that adds to the watch’s charm. Elsewhere, it has taken the tachymeter bezel and six o’clock date window from the “Montecarlo” and the bold, shininess of the dial from the Prince Oysterdate, with its sun-brushed dial catching the light beautifully and contrasting with the slightly hollowed-out sub dials. Powering it, yet unseen thanks to a closed case back, is its Manufacture Chronograph Calibre MT5813, made in-house and just a short stroll across the lush Le Locle grass at its movement maker Kenissi. It is a column-wheel chronograph, which essentially means that this function is geared in such a way as to make it more accurate, more precise, with a smoother feel to the pusher action. The big improvement is the Jubilee bracelet, which is now equipped with Tudor’s T-Fit clasp, comprising a horizontally spring-loaded piece that slides across the inner clasp to provide up to eight millimetres of adjustment, ideal for that seasonal wrist expansion or contraction.

So, the good news is that Tudor has finally added a coveted blue dial to its increasingly popular Black Bay line of chronographs. The bad news is, you’ll need to put some trousers on and go to a boutique to buy it.

£4,880; tudorwatch.com