The Deep End

Officine Panerai’s new range of Submersibles has broken the waves and is ready for duty.

- Ashok Soman

The best watches in the world naturally earn their places on the wrists of the best people. Unsurprisingly, some of these folks are proper heroes. Now, wouldn’t you like to wear the watch of a proper hero? the above passage reflects a concept in marketing timepieces that goes back decades, perhaps even centuries. In fact, the idea that objects can have an intrinsic value – independent of its origins, its makers or its purveyors – that one might add to oneself by simply possessing them is positively ancient.

Returning to watches, many brands are keen to position their offerings in a way that directly associates their brand with some notion of heroism. Very few can say that their watches were made for real men of action, and that these watches made a real difference to those who wore them. as far as we know, only one name in watchmaking can claim its origins in this way – a story cloaked for years in secrecy, with watches that were never made for the general public. Of course, if you are reading this article, then you already know that our subject is Officine Panerai.

So, why do we bother going about this preamble, especially given that we reliably cover Panerai, well, all the time. It is certainly not because we – or you, for that matter – need a reintroduction. to be honest and fair, the Panerai story is simply incredible, and to hear it again reminds us how powerful a good origin story can be. Well, there is also a lot of pure marketing noise about the very values Panerai embodies, quite naturally, spread all across every level of watchmaking that one has to leaf through the real story again.