Panerai Submersible PAM983, PAM985 & PAM961 Experience Watches Hands-On

It should come as no surprise that the travel and tourism sector remains one of the world's fastest growing, with an increasingly persistent trend being the value of "Experiences over things." With the watch industry focused on "Things," it should come as little surprise that savvy brands would try to marry the two - as Panerai indicated at SIHH with a new trio of extremely limited Submersible watches, each with a unique brand experience tied to their purchase The premise is relatively simple: buy a Panerai for the exclusive privilege of belonging to an elite owner's club that hangs out with Panerai's adventurous brand ambassadors in exotic locales Housing the most notable changes of the three from a design and engineering standpoint is PAM985 - a 19-piece, 47mm limited edition that unlocks an expedition for its owners on an ice floe in the Arctic with 17-year Panerai ambassador Mike Horn, who is widely acknowledged as "The greatest living explorer" in the adventure community, having rightfully earned the title after being the first to complete a solo, unsupported crossing of Antarctica at its widest point in 2017.

Last year's Oris Diver 65, followed by the excellent Breitling x Outerknown collaboration each shipped with different forms of recycled nylon straps, but Panerai manages to make a two-piece strap that looks and feels like a truly premium, luxury product, which will also will be readily available for purchase at Panerai boutiques later this year, comparably priced to the brand's leather and rubber offerings The diving scale on the Submersible bezel is also fully engraved now with brushed surfaces and blasted texture within, hearkening the earliest watch Panerai created for Horn: the PAM186 Luminor Submersible Arktos GMT, with its raised compass relief It deploys the new Submersible handset found on the Mike Horn, but utilizes a brand new luminous applicant for Panerai: three-dimensional Super-LumiNova blocks, cut into the circular and hyphen-shaped hour markers that characterize a Submersible dial.

I had a chance to chat with the soft-spoken Néry over the prospect of hosting 15 Panerai collectors at his favorite training grounds in Mo'orea this fall, and he seemed to be just as enamored of the opportunity to have a new global platform to bring the sport of freediving to a new audience, as Panerai is to have access to him for this type of exclusive event. . Source