Forged in Precision

At the Officine Panerai manufacture, the brand conducts comprehensive tests on its watches, which validates why it is positioned as a leader in reliability and durability

- Somya Rauthan

It’s a cool and breezy day in the quiet town of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, home to several watch manufactures, including that of Officine Panerai. It is the biggest manufacture in the area, spanning more than 10,000 square metres, but another aspect that sets Panerai apart is that though the brand creates Swiss watches, its Italian soul is unmistakable. This is evident the moment I cross the threshold of its glass façade to step into its manufacture’s reception area—a sleek, modernist space with a strong emphasis on proportions and lines, and wooden flooring that is set against black and white undulating walls.

The brand's heritage is equally reflected in the large Panerai wall clock that greets you as soon as you enter, reflecting the signature Luminor aesthetic with Arabic numbers, bar markers, and small seconds, coated with green glowing Super-LumiNova®. Harmonising with that, a supersized number ‘3’- and a ‘6’-shaped seating in light green echo the typography of Panerai’s dials and its legacy in luminosity. After all, luminescence is a brand cornerstone, dating back to 1916 when Panerai developed Radiomir, a radium-based luminous material used for military dive instruments, and in 1949, further innovated with Luminor, a safer, tritium-based compound that shaped the identity of its now-iconic Luminor collection. The displays in the common area further emphasise this. The six types of luminous materials the brand has used (Radiomir, Luminor, Super-LumiNova®, Vintage-Style Super-LumiNova®, X1 Super-LumiNova®, and Lume-Integrated Components) are showcased, along with elements that are typical of Panerai: Its sandwich dial, in-house movements, light titanium and carbon cases, and crown-protecting devices.