From Secrecy to Transparency

Even though the Panerai manufacture has opened its doors to disclosure, the once bastion of military secrecy retains an aura of mystery, awe and fascination.

- by Asaph Low

My car departs Geneva one last time towards the northern reaches of Switzerland. This will be my third and final manufacture visit on the trip. Everything was a blur after a gruelling week of watch viewing but by now, the route is familiar. Driving by Lake Geneva with the mountain line visible in the distance offers views one never tires of. Fun fact: Lake Geneva spans 581km², roughly 79 per cent of Singapore's land mass of 735.7km². The route snakes up from Geneva, as with the previous two visits; this time, however, we turn up the winding hills of Neuchâtel instead of driving past. Perched on an upslope, flanked by trees and brushed by alpine air without gilded fanfare, the Panerai Manufacture reveals itself with modern restraint, perhaps as a nod to its military past.

After moving its workshop beyond Italian borders to the Swiss canton overlooking Lake Neuchâtel in 2002, Panerai expanded into this larger facility, further advancing its suite of highly specialised in-house production capabilities. The facility was inaugurated in 2014 and combines the ingenuity and excellence of Italian design with traditional Swiss expertise. Those privy to Panerai's storied past would know of its roots as suppliers of precision instruments to the Italian Royal Navy as far back as 1916 under the tutelage of Giovanni Panerai. It was not until 1993 that the brand made its watches available to the public. Much of the Panerai aesthetics echo those of the past, including the iconic crown-protecting device, cushion-shaped case and luminous sandwich dial construction. While the watches appear simple on paper, they are more complex than they seem, as we discover at the Panerai manufacture.