BERLIN Automatic midnight blue silver / Heritage 20 dark brown

Midnight blue is the color that looks black in a meeting room and blue the moment you step outside. On the BERLIN Automatik, that shift is the whole idea.

Sternglas made the BERLIN as its dress and heritage line, built around the 1846 Hamburg to Berlin rail connection. The screwed caseback carries an engraving of Hamburg's Berliner Bahnhof, in service from 1857 to 1903. The dial keeps to the Bauhaus principles the Hamburg brand has followed since it started in 2016: legibility first, decoration never.

The midnight blue dial sits under double-domed sapphire with double anti-reflective coating, in a 38 mm silver-tone stainless steel case with a date display and an automatic movement that winds itself as you move. Water resistance is 5 bar. The 20 mm Heritage strap is dark brown alligator-embossed cowhide, 4 mm thick, and comes off tool-free when you want to change the mood.

Blue and brown is the least fussy pairing in menswear, and this is a particularly clean version of it.

Perfect for: midnight blue dial watches, brown leather automatic watches, understated everyday timepieces.