A color may be a trend, but getting it right can still be a tricky business. Look, for example, at the wide variety of green-colored dials offered these days. By comparison, Salmon is still somewhat niche, perhaps because it is even more difficult to balance in the overall design of a watch. That didn’t stop Nivada from using a shade of it in their new Chronoking, showing us a surprisingly novel side of this versatile chronograph.

Three colors dominate the design: salmon, black, and white, and at first this seems like an unlikely combination. Nivada makes it work by blending them to perfection. The black aluminum diving bezel sets the stage for the salmon dial to shine. With the dial’s sunray finish, it has no problem doing so, especially when light hits it at the right angle. The applied indexes, whose luminous material really gives back in dark environments and white hands for the subdials, offer perfect legibility. It is all brought together by the centrally mounted hands, which are black for the hour and minute, with luminous material at the center. The hand for the chronograph seconds is also black at the center but only for about 1/3, as the rest is white. This gives a pleasantly sporty blend that goes surprisingly well with the orange-pink-toned dial.
The legibility is superb, except for the tachymeter scale on the perimeter of the dial. Not only is the font rather small, but it is often also directly under the curve of the double-domed sapp...