Horological Meandering

Horolographer
1367

• Show profile
• Show other posts

While this is a little late in the discussion, I thought it might be interesting to...

to reflect on the how the Italian Naval Commandos have been valueable to Panerai.

First, I would not label them as terrorist because they were in the employ of the navy and carrying out missions planned and ordered by the Italian military chiefs. So by their function they are not terrorist even thought their methods are. For the same reasons I would not call the SAS or the Delta Force, terrorists - which in today's context has a different use and meaning I believe.

But more importantly to my point I wish to share. The Italian Naval Commando unit was a very small elite force. Unfortunately for them, their existence is very short lived. They may have some degree of success but if you read how they carried out the stealth destruction, well I would best describe it as low tech and high risk. Did they wear watches into battle that really look like the Panerai today? So far, from what I have read and seen, no.

Yet in the early years of Panerai releasing their new watches, we are told how special and significant these watches because of the exploits of the naval divers (actually I believe the brand's early success has more to do with Sly Stallone - but I will leave that out for this discussion). Their ads of the black & white images of naval divers with huge depth gauges on their wrist all lend a sense of identity to the watch as not something that was hatched overnight. The watch was rated to be effective to serious depths. So as a sports watch, it has so much going for it. Not the least a daring design and size.

The curious thing is - their greatest military claim to fame is that it was standard issue for the italian frogmen for that short history of that unit. It remains as their main marketing focus until of late (where they released a completely new line of complex pieces with long power reserves and tourbillons - that has nothing to do with the Italian Frogmen).

While I am not faulting the Italian Frogmen and their exploits - I compared Panerai with Sinn sometime ago. The former I realise is really a fashion watch that does not rate with any current military unit.

Sinn on the other hand is issued to the various German military units (I lost count) AND obviously their technical specification requirements today exceed those of WW2. Sinn has not spent a single cent (so far as I know it) to market this fact. But I cannot say if it would enjoy the same level of success if it did.

For me, its just a little strange now looking at it how a brand spends so much of its marketing on something that happened so many decades ago. Is it clever marketing? I certainly think so.

(I would be happy if any of the Panerai stalwarts can correct any the facts I may have gotten wrong here)

HT