Teddy Baldassarre
Panerai Watches Guide
Tracing its roots to the 19th Century but bursting on the cultural scene on the cusp of the 21st, Panerai is an overnight success more than 100 years in the making. From humble and very utilitarian beginnings as a maker of tools and instruments for military divers in the 1930s, the Florentine watchmaker has become a powerhouse in the luxury sector, its unapologetically militaristic and indisputably masculine designs blurring the lines between tool watch and luxury item like few brands before or since. Here is the story of Officine Panerai and an overview of the modern Panerai watch collections. Guido Panerai and the First Radiomir Giovanni Panerai opened his watchmaking shop on Ponte Alle Grazie in Florence in 1860, and with the help of his son Leon Franceso built it into the ancestral Italian city’s first retailer of Swiss watches as well as its first watchmaking school. When Giovanni’s grandson Guido took over the business, near the turn of the century - and acquired his wife’s family business, which made tools and hardware for military use, including combat sights, compasses and depth gauges - it had become essentially two companies: Orologerie Svizzera, the shop that sold prestigious Swiss watch brands like Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, and Rolex; and Guido Panerai & Figlio, primarily a supplier of precision instruments and diving equipment to the Royal Italian Navy, or Regia Marina. As a military provider, Panerai recognized the need early on f...
