Grokking mechanics to some degree was fundamental to achieving the horological high, “the quieter form of fascination.” Promoting this state of mind, I will argue, should be at the heart of the Swiss watch industry. I believe this message to the industry is implicit in Lederer’s philosophy.
This was Panerai’s strategy in 2025, and the result is an update to the core 44mm Luminor Marina, the exact model that sits at the center of the expansive Panerai catalog. For the Rolex-heads out there, this update is like when the Crown gently updates the Submariner. The main difference is that when Panerai does the equivalent, watch journalists don’t start running down the halls of Watches and Wonders waving their hands yelling to their video team, “Roll the cameras now!”
I wore my Panerai Submersible to ride the Ducati XDiavel V4 thinking it’d be fun, maybe a little clever, but what I didn’t see coming was the deeper synergy between these two products.
It’s a dress watch, full stop. Yes, mine is rated to 50m of water resistance (previous versions were marked at 30m, much to the chagrin of forum-dwellers who like to bitch about nothing remotely important), but it has, and will always have, a leather strap, so it’s not for swimming or showering or anything wet. It’s just 10mm tall, elegantly appointed, and the ever-present leather strap goes great with dressy attire. Again, this is a dress watch, and even the lovely sales-dude in Milan said so.
And lastly – if redundantly – wearing the PAM01347 and 01348 in an entirely elegant experience. I can’t stress enough how fine these watches feel to wear. Which isn’t at all what most people have been saying about these models, which are crafted to appear as if they’ve been through decades of hard use. Panerai simply can’t make a watch that’s not finished exquisitely, and that finishing along with brave treatments and unique historical designs simply adds up to elegance.
The ultimate strength of the 44mm Luminor, however, is its ability to take on vastly different treatments and always look great. It’s a design that Panerai has long steered in many directions, from fully polished steel time-only models with softened retro colorways to carbon Luminors with pops of primary colors across complicated chronographs. With the limited edition model in hand here, the 44mm Luminor has been given a chic grayed-out treatment to celebrate the opening of Panerai’s new flagship store in Manhattan. With a nod to the Big Apple area code, there are 212 examples for sale of the PAM01467.
Panerai releasing the PAM914 is like the Rolling Stones playing “Satisfaction.” It was just an undeniably dead-center kind of watch, the one you might have sent out to space to represent Panerai to aliens. It’s the Panerai that didn’t have some feature you wished was or wasn’t there. Here’s why this watch is the perfect Panera.
The Skinny 44mm Solid red gold case with 50 meters water resistance In-house caliber P.9010 autowinding with 72 hours of power, date, sub-seconds, and jumping hour hand Year of release: 2020 $22,900 Panerai On Par With The Holy Trinity It’s been liberating to shed my expectation that Panerai should – in accordance with rather dubious… Read more »