Florence: The Marino Marini museum in Florence was once the ancient church San Pancrazio. After its deconsecration in 1808, it has served as the seat of the Florence lottery and even a tobacco factory before it was turned into a private museum dedicated to the famous 20th century Italian sculptor.
For four days in May this year the museum hosted in its ancient crypt an exhibition that celebrated the evolution of a celebrated Florentine brand — Officine Panerai.
The ‘Dive into Time’ exhibition, held between May 18-21, gave visitors a glimpse into history of the luxury sports watch brand replete with a curated collection of unseen timepieces and instruments the brand made for the Italian Navy.
Panerai, part of the Richemont Group, is an unusual success story in an industry that venerates tradition and heritage. It started out as a humble workshop that made diving instruments and watches for the Italian navy.
In 1935, they received a commission to kit the elite Frogmen (Naval commandos) division with a durable divers’ watch that had a bright luminous dial for easy readability underwater.
This first Panerai wristwatch, made in 1936, used a case supplied by Rolex and a movement (the engine that powers the watch’s functions) supplied by Cortébert. Panerai’s association with supplying diving watches for the navy was strong through the subsequent decades and it even made a special divers watch for the Egyptian navy referred to as the L’Egiziano (The Egyptian) by collectors.
Stallone’s endorsement
The brand only made its watches accessible to the public in 1993. A year later American actor Sylvester Stallone took a shine to the brand when he ventured into Panerai’s boutique in Florence while on a break from shooting for his film ‘Daylight’. Stallone ordered a special edition of 101 pieces, the “Luminor Daylight Slytech”.
Stallone’s endorsement took the brand mainstream and some say that this also spawned the trend of oversized watches in the industry. The Italian label caught the attention of Johann Rupert, chief executive of the Richemont Group, and in 1997 Richemont bought the company. This move marked the successful transition of Panerai from a maker of tool watches to a luxury sports brand.
Cult following
The modern Panerai brand has a bit of a cult following and even has its own enthusiast group, referred to as the Paneristi.
At the exhibition, Panerai unveiled its most complicated watch yet, the Radiomir 1940 Minute Repeater Carillon Tourbillon GMT, a $400,000 (Dh1.46 million) beast of a watch that was designed and manufactured in-house at the brand’s manufacturing digs in Neuchatel, Switzerland. A minute repeater is a complex chiming watch and is usually associated with Swiss haute horology brands like Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet.
Panerai’s long-serving CEO Angelo Bonati thinks this model is more of a show-and-tell of the brand’s technological prowess than a commercial operation. The ability of a brand to make its own movement is a prized quality in the horological universe today and up to 95 per cent of Panerai watches are fitted with in-house engines.
“We need products like the Minute Repeater to showcase our technical know-how. In the 10 years that we’ve been making our own movements, we have produced 26 of them. We need to show Panerai collectors that we were capable of more.
“Our collectors want chaos, they want something different, they have been asking us for something exceptional. And if they want it, we need to deliver or we risk losing them,” says Bonati.
This is not Panerai’s first foray into the world of haute horology. In 2011, the brand debuted the L’Astronomo (The Luminor 1950 Equation of Time Tourbillon Titanio, limited to just 30 pieces and costing close to $250,000). “We constantly get enquiries about this watch. Clearly, there is a clientele for our haute horology pieces.”
Technical know-how
Bonati says the development of the Minute Repeater project was long, but only because he insisted that their product be different from anything else in the market.
“I want something different. Three times I rejected the tourbillon that the product team had proposed to me because this wasn’t original. It was the same with the Minute Repeater.
“The finishing, the sound of the minute repeater, the ability to chime both home and local time are all unique. I told the product team that even if we sell just three pieces, I’ll be happy.
“Haute horology contributes a minuscule portion of our business. We are only looking for awareness here, a showcase for our technical know-how,” says Bonati.
Panerai doesn’t reveal its sales figures but parent company Richemont recorded declining watch sales in the second-half of the year ending March 31, 2016. While the industry has been in a tailspin following weaker demand in China and a general slowdown in the global economy, Panerai is using this opportunity to clean up.
Leaner network
At a time when most brands are fretting about dwindling sales, Panerai is actually trimming its distribution network by reducing its global point-of-sales from 500 to 400.
“When the market is difficult, you need to take some decisions. I want to take this opportunity to clean up. So when things start to look good again, we are ready with a really good distribution network.
“If you don’t take an opportunity like this when the whole market is suffering, you’ll never clean up distribution. I prefer to cut, keep it clean and exclusive,” says Bonati.
In addition to the Minute Repeater, Panerai also unveiled some upgrades to its popular Luminor line. One of them, the Panerai Due (pronounced Du-ay), is a dressy, slim watch that’s a welcome departure from the brand’s chunky sports watch style.
“The repositioning of the Luminor range has been done with the aim to look for new clients. The potential of Luminor Due is huge, it depends on how we market and develop it.
“We’ve only presented the base model today, we can develop it in both directions. Keeping it slim, we could take the price point high or lower depending on the kind of movement we develop for it in the future.”
The writer is the editor of Watch Time.