I love Mr Jones Watches' wonderfully mad Odyssey – but you won't get one

London-based Mr Jones Watches has built a reputation for producing some of the most distinctive timepieces it’s possible to strap to your wrist – and its latest is no exception.

It’s called the Odyssey and it features a psychedelic dial designed by Edward Carvalho-Monaghan, who is also the mind behind Mr Jones’ flagship The Indefatigable Sphinx.

Speaking about his latest design, Carvalho-Monaghan said: “There’s never enough time in the day to worry about keeping track of hours…Months and years are the appropriate planning horizon. With that in mind, the design prioritises the date, giving space to the longer arcs of time while letting the rest melt into the surreal textures of the design.

As you’d expect from a Mr Jones piece, the Odyssey's dial is a celebration of colour. The company says every printable surface of the watch has been coloured, not just on the dial but also the date ring, the underside of the sapphire crystal and even the rotor of the automatic movement.

The result is “a layered, shifting composition that changes constantly as time ticks forward,” the watchmaker says. It’s a busy dial, of course, but the time is still clearly there – clearer than on some other Mr Jones pieces, to my eyes – thanks to a pair of thin black pointers for hours and minutes, then a white lightning bolt for the seconds.

Just as its designer explained, the dial puts an emphasis on the date, which passes by with red digits printed on a yellow wheel. I like how more than a full week of dates, stretching a few days into the past and future, are shown at once, further emphasising Carvalho-Monaghan’s desire for the wearing to focus on the bigger picture.

The Odyssey was priced at £695 and become available on 18th July. It was limited to only 50 examples so it sold out quickly, too quickly for me to get my hands on. Hopefully Mr Jones Watches will bring it back for another limited drop but we'll have to wait and see.