Rolex’s Four Seasons Daytonas look like someone gave the jewellery department permission to ignore the volume control. Green meets purple. Turquoise collides with pink. Yellow gold gets a green frame. Even winter arrives with a shot of fuchsia. Together, the four watches make a compelling argument for taking colour as seriously as complications.

There is a specific reason to pay attention now. Rolex has announced a Phillips charity auction in London on September 28, 2026. The four unique Cosmograph Daytonas will be sold as four separate lots, with proceeds benefiting the Federer Foundation and Re:wild. The former supports children’s early education; the latter works on protecting and restoring ecosystems.

Pick a season

The official collection details are wonderfully specific. Spring combines white gold, a chrysoprase dial and lepidolite counters with purple sapphires. Summer puts turquoise and ruby counters inside Everose gold, surrounded by pink sapphires. Autumn pairs yellow gold with mookaite, chrysoprase counters and green tourmalines. Winter uses platinum, blue opal and lapis lazuli, with a sapphire bezel graduating from blue to fuchsia.

Summer is our visual pick. The cool dial and hot bezel make the whole watch read like a deliberate colour clash rather than a collection of individually expensive components. Spring is stranger in a good way: the pale green and lavender combination feels almost confectionery. These are objects you can have an opinion about before checking a reference number.

Winter rewards a closer look at the official photographs. The dial’s shifting pattern competes with the ordered circle of the bezel, while the blue counters give the composition somewhere to settle. It is busy, but the familiar three-counter layout prevents the colours from becoming completely untethered.

The interesting part is the design permission

A unique watch gives a designer room to pursue an idea without needing it to be everybody’s everyday choice. Here, the seasonal concept makes the four pieces coherent without making them repetitive. Each has a different temperature and mood. Seeing them together matters: the contrast is part of the appeal.

That is also why the auction should be read on its own terms. A one-off charity result will reflect the particular object, the cause and the bidders in the room. It would be a poor shortcut for judging the price of a regular-production Daytona. The sale has not happened yet, and there is no result to report.

For the rest of us, the pleasure is simpler: choose the combination you would wear, then argue your case. Our vote goes to Summer, but Autumn’s yellow-and-green confidence makes it a very close contest.

Image: Rolex. Auction information checked September 10, 2026.