Given Panerai’s unchanging approach to design, and its origins as a World War 2 diver’s watch, it can be slightly jarring to realise that as a consumer watch brand, it is the same age as such 1990s icons as Pepsi Max, the Aston Martin DB7 or – appropriately enough – Action Man.
Founded in 1860 by Giovanni Panerai as a combination of workshop, watchmaking school and shop, the company only began producing watches for the public once it was acquired by the Vendome group (now Richemont) in 1993. On September 10 1993, at a dramatic ceremony held on board the Italian naval destroyer Luigi Durand de la Penne, in La Spezia harbor, home to Italy’s naval special forces, Panerai officially emerged from military secrecy as a consumer watchmaker. Its endorsement by Sylvester Stallone in 1995 and subsequent international launch in 1997 saw it become one of the most popular brands of the early 21st century, emblematic of the fashion for oversized designs.
A new exhibition, opening today in Florence, marks the 32nd anniversary of the brand’s debut onto the public stage by paying tribute to its preceding decades of military watch production. For most of the 20th century, the timepieces and diving instruments (which included depth gauges and wrist-worn compasses) that Panerai produced were classified under Italy’s Military Secrets Act; it had supplied the Italian and German navies during WW2 as well as the Egyptian navy and others from the 1950s onwards.
The brand’s famous Radiomir and Luminor designs both began life as military-only creations; its work in luminosity and waterproof case construction was highly advanced for its time. The exhibition, titled ‘Depths of Time,’ features historical instruments, patent documents, early catalogues and correspondence between the Panerai family and the Italian navy. It will be on display for two months in the brand’s flagship boutique in Florence, before embarking on a world tour that will take in US and Chinese cities.
To mark the opening of the exhibition, Panerai has also announced details of a new limited edition Marina Militare model, designed to faithfully recreate one of its very earliest references from 1993 – a watch that was originally only offered to naval personnel. A tribute to ref. 5218-202/A, the watch combines a black coated steel case (executed in diamond-like carbon rather than the original’s PVD coating) and black dial with hour markers and hands in colours that echo the precise shades of patina developed by those early models.
The 44mm watch, which bears the reference PAM05218, runs on Panerai’s hand-wound calibre P.6000, with a three-day power reserve. It has the same 300-m (approx. 984-ft) water resistance as the brand’s other Marina Militare pieces, and rather than the ‘sandwich’ style dial construction for which Panerai is well known, has a single-layer dial with engraved, luminova-filled numerals – which have been subtly altered to perfectly match the design of the 1993 original.
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Its solid caseback is engraved with the brand’s ‘OP’ logo as well as a numbered designation: the brand says the watch is not a strictly limited edition but will instead only be available in boutiques “by request.”
panerai.com