Panerai

Officine Panerai can trace its roots back to 1860 when Giovanni Panerai opened up his watch shop in Florence, Italy. Giovanni’s grandson Guido Panerai took over the company at the turn of the century and began supplying the Royal Italian Navy, La Regia Marina with high precision instruments. Most notably, Panerai created Radiomir, a luminous radium-based powder that was used on the dials of their wristwatches and other instruments supplied to the military. By the 1930s, the Marina Militare requested Panerai to design a wrist-worn timepiece that can withstand the extreme underwater conditions encountered by the Naval Frogmen during their missions. The result was Panerai’s most iconic model, the Radiomir, featuring dials luminated by the namesake powder that would go on to define the brand for the following decades. 

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of Panerai’s place is horology history in addition to their invention of Radiomir, is Panerai's collaboration with Rolex SA. Panerai watches from the early twentieth century featured cases designed and manufactured by Rolex for Panerai, with movement maker Cortébert supplying the majority of the calibres. Panerai continued supplying the Italian Military until 1970 before making their products available for the civilian market in 1993. 

The present Reference PAM00395 is a modern reinterpretation of Panerai’s first watch, the Radiomir. Released in 2012 as a special edition, the Radiomir 8 Days GMT Oro Rosso, features a 45 mm case in Panerai’s Red Gold, and is powered by the manually wound calibre P2002/10 comprising of 245 components that boasts an impressive 8-day power reserve and a frequency of 28800 vibrations per hour.

The wire lug design, sandwich dial construction, and manual wound movement pays homage to the original design of the Radiomir from the 1930s.