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Panerai is a company that every watch fan should know a bit
about. Panerai is a small Florentine
watch manufacturer that
commands a big presence, both on your wrist
and in the industry. The brand’s instantly recognisable features are the product of over 70 years of watchmaking experience. Until Richemont (then the Vendome
Group) acquired the brand in 1997 as barely more than a box of design drawings, a few
watch components and an armful of nautical
instruments, it was virtually unknown outside
the arcane world of military-timepiece
enthusiasts and Italian naval historians. In
fact, Officine Panerai was in very real danger
of disappearing altogether from the lexicon
of contemporary watches.
Today, however, owning a Panerai watch
is a dream for many. Having started life as
utilitarian diving watches, Panerai are now
coveted as iconic sports watches. The watches
of Panerai today have not changed that much
from their original design.
A Panerai watch is about far more than fashion. It is about tolerances that meet or exceed the most exacting specifications of perhaps the most exacting people in the world: military and naval engineers. It is about tooling so precise and mechanisms so superbly designed that the movements keep moving even when other professional equipment has seized solid. |
A Panerai watch is also about rugged beauty and style so extraordinary that it forced even Hollywood to sit up and take notice. It is about the ever-renewing search, not only for perfection, but for imagination as well. It is about play, about sportsmanship, about function - without failure - 1000 metres underwater.
From the very first models, Panerai watches have encapsulated superior technical qualities in a highly imaginative design of powerful aesthetic impact. This was an entirely new concept in the panorama of prestigious watches, a revolutionary combination of sport, solid functionality, and composed formal elegance in a rare balance that takes attentive observers by surprise and fills them with admiring curiosity. Military use ran parallel with civilian use for decades before they finally, naturally, converged.
“I immediately felt when I saw the watch that it had star power,” Sylvester Stallone once remarked. He promptly ordered a batch of Panerai watches that he could gift to friends. Only 105 Sylvester Stallone Special Edition pieces were made with Sly’s full signature on the case back. No wonder Wikipedia lists Sly as an “unofficial brand ambassador” for Officine Panerai.
Lovers of old or vintage watches, lovers of divers’ watches, fashion-lovers who see in Panerai watches that are instantly recognisable everywhere have gone crazy about the brand. In short, anyone on two legs with a head and a wrist to dress is falling for Officine Panerai. |
