It’s funny but in the 36 years since I matriculated, the only other guy I met that had graduated from Vassar College was Anthony Bourdain. One night many years ago, seated on red plastic stools, eating curbside in Singapore’s red-light district, I had one of the greatest meals of my life. Bourdain was extraordinary — part shaman, part sage, a raconteur extraordinaire, a lovable, aging punk-rocking curmudgeon with his middle finger still raised to the world. He was the human embodiment of the most famous line in Rage Against the Machine’s “Bulls on Parade.” But he was also open and receptive, interested to learn about Singapore. He was amused to find out those of us living here were happy to trade a modicum of “free speech” for a society where a woman could walk anywhere at any time and feel safe, and that we reveled in awe at how this tiny island nation rose to first world status by investing in its one and only natural resource, its people and their education.

On the subject of education, he mentioned he had gone to Vassar before dropping out for the Culinary Institute of America. I laughed and replied, “Me, too.” He raised his beer to me and said, “Cheers, Vassar Guy.” When I brought my beer to his, I replied, “60/40!” and he chuckled and said, “60/40,” back. What I referred to was the female-to-male ratio of Vassar College, an elite women’s liberal arts college that turned coed in the year of my birth, 1969.

Despite accepting those featuring the XY chromosome for over two decades before I got there, Vassar still maintained a predominantly female student body. I had explained this to my father as he drove me to campus on my first day. As I was keenly aware that I had been a failure with women throughout my high school career, my hopeful rationale was this ratio would play to my favor. I paused to add that I heard Vassar’s proximity to New York City and its reputation for liberalism also meant that not all 40 percent of the men who went there would be my direct competition. My father, who is an academic, the first Singaporean to attend Harvard Law School on a Fulbright scholarship, and at 30 the youngest ambassador to the United Nations in his generation, looked dubiously at me as if to say, “How could you possibly ascertain that?” At that moment we pulled into the college quad, and next to us on the grass, we both spied a full-grown man, wearing a dress, skipping a jump rope.

Where Hype Ends, Style Begins

But what has that got to do with my rediscovery of the appeal of Panerai? Let me continue. See, one of the great things about the post-hype era in watch collecting is that we’ve entered an inflection point, where the watch world has splintered off into myriad tribes. And you can love whatever you like. Much like Vassar College, you are completely free to do your own thing. I’ve observed with fascination the rise in Gilbert Albert-inspired shaped watches in brands such as Anoma, the return of the watch as a formed art piece for the wrist as expressed by Toledano & Chan’s clever riff on the Rolex King Midas, and the renaissance of stylized lugs as perpetuated by the great casemakers of the ’40s and ’50s, such as Borgel or Gerlach, nicely executed by Thomas Fleming.

With some amusement, I’ve also observed Gen Z “discover” Cartier, which they’ve leaned into so hard it’s even earned some of them much-deserved helicopter rides to the manufacture. The prevailing love for shaped watches and hardstone dials (apparently “semiprecious” is an offensive term, who knew the stones were so sensitive?) has seen Piaget come back powerfully. It seems that every woven-bracelet, quartz jewelry watch in your grandparents’ back drawer, from the Patek Philippe reference 3733 to the Audemars Piguet Gilbert-Goschen-bracelet-equipped Cobra ref. 5403, is making a return to the spotlight.

One of the great things about the post-hype era in watch collecting is that we’ve entered an inflection point, where the watch world has splintered off into myriad tribes. And you can love whatever you like.

At the same time, it seems that every new upstart independent watchmaker has decided to champion hand finishing. Says legendary Singaporean retailer Michael Tay, “It’s the fashion now to be hugely focused on hand finishing. That’s great. But it’s also far easier to execute than a significant technical breakthrough, such as those created by François-Paul Journe, because there is no risk with finishing. You either do it yourself and it’s just very time consuming, or you pay others to do it for you. You are not sending out watches with a major innovation that may also not work. You are not staking your reputation on something new.”

While this is all great, if you judge horological tastes purely by social media, you would think that the modern watch world belongs exclusively to small, shaped watches with woven precious metal bracelets and hardstone dials. If you judge it based on the innumerable Instagram reels bombarding our feeds, invariably narrated by some laconic Gen Z hipster, it sometimes feels as if the world we live in today, and the prevailing taste in watches, has been reframed according to the narrow perspective of that one guy in a dress on the quad lawn with the jump rope.

But what if you are not a brand that makes small watches? What is the relevance of the Panerai Luminor Marina or the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore in a world fixated on the ever-shrinking watch? To me, these watches are more relevant than ever. While I have been waxing lyrical on the merits of the 36.5mm dress watch since 2018, and continue to assert that the Chopard L.U.C 1860 is the most perfectly executed modern dress watch, the bias that social media places on “quirky” horology is exactly the reason I find myself strapping on a Panerai on a daily basis.

In the past, I described how I became a Cartier collector after passing through different stages of watch collecting, starting with sports watches, then moving to complicated watches, then shifting to independent watchmaking, then finally embracing the pure simple beauty of Cartier’s shaped cases. Today, I find myself reconnecting with Panerai big time, because of the pure, elemental, pragmatic badass simplicity of its designs.

Yes, I will admit I like the ursine-like provocation of the 44mm classic Luminor Marina amid the current obsession with increasingly smaller watches that has seen men on the red carpet wearing women’s timepieces — from Timothée Chalamet and his mini Panthère to the Weeknd in his Piaget Limelight, to Bad Bunny wearing the Ellipse reference 4831J in GQ. As I said, the watch world is an open playing field where you can express yourself however you want and even adorn your women’s jewelry watch with a stack of Van Cleef & Arpels Alhambra bracelets, should that be your thing. But to me, any time the pendulum swings to extremes, it’s more about fashion than enduring style.

I’ve found this era of The Great Shrinking Watch to be analogous to The Great Shrinking Men’s Suit in the early 2000s. In 2002, Hedi Slimane launched his first collection of men’s suiting at Dior Homme. He intentionally created a silhouette and fit that was so slim and tight that the suits could, in general, only be worn by women, prepubescent boys or vampires.

But this was the era of “heroin chic,” where it became cool to have a physique so emaciated, it looked like you had a life-threatening drug problem. Karl Lagerfeld was so inspired by Slimane that he famously lost 41 kilograms by ingesting just 1,200 calories a day, so that he could wear his suits. However, this was not style; this was fashion.

Eventually, the tiny suit faded into obsolescence because even the most hardcore fashionistas decided they wanted to actually eat a meal from time to time. I would equate the trend of women’s watches on men as the horological equivalent to early Dior Homme suits. While this seems sensationally relevant and bombastically au courant right now, as with all trends, it will fade.

It’s also funny to me that Gen Z thinks it invented androgyny, failing to recognize pioneers in this reaching all the way back to Marlene Dietrich in white tie, Cecil Beaton in the 1920s, David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust, the New York Dolls in the ’70s, and Rick Owens from the early 2000s to now. But let them paint their nails, don pearl necklaces and women’s watches, and feel as if they are collectively enacting the most seismic style revolution of all time; if it makes them feel significant, why not?

To me, any time the pendulum swings to extremes, it’s more about fashion than enduring style.

In the meantime, to me, there is an underlying authenticity to a 44mm Panerai Luminor Marina that makes it feel perfect on my wrist. I remember that the very first story I wrote as a watch journalist was about Panerai and how Richemont Group had turned what was once a military tool into the most exciting new luxury watch brand. For an old guy like me, there is also a huge amount of nostalgia with Panerai. It was the first watch company to ever make me feel, as an adult man, that I had found “my brand.” Why? Because what could be more appealing than the fact that the modern luxury watch you are strapping onto your wrist is based on dive watches worn by Royal Italian naval commandos?

Panerai’s watches are so rich in narrative, so powerful and emotive, that the first time I saw one, I knew I had to have one. So I saved the better part of my freelance writing salary for half a year to purchase my first Panerai, a PAM 61, a titanium-cased timepiece with a stunning tobacco-colored dial. And the moment I bought this watch, I knew it was the start of an addiction.

Deep Heritage

Panerai was also the subject of my very first freelance watch story for the national newspaper in Singapore, a story that turned out to be easy to write because the brand is so brilliantly steeped in the most extraordinary mythology. Panerai began as a maker of luminous sighting devices, before being tapped by the Italian Navy in the ’30s to create robust dive watches with dials that would glow even in the dark depths of the ocean. In the ’90s, the brand began to make a few limited series of civilian watches using its core military design iconography, as well as the famous crown lever locking device in a model known as the Luminor Marina. The story goes that the Hollywood actor Sylvester Stallone came across a Panerai one day and fell in love with it. He showed it to his friend Johann Rupert, the owner of Richemont Group (then known as the Vendôme Group), who subsequently purchased the brand.

Upon taking ownership of Panerai, the new owners found a box of new-old-stock vintage Rolex movements. They put these movements inside a 60-piece series of platinum Radiomir (the brand’s cushion-shaped case) watches and, with this first model, recouped the entire cost of purchasing the brand. However, even more amazing is the fact that this watch — the PAM 21 — is today one of the world’s most collectible timepieces.

It was at the onset of the Richemont Group era for Panerai that a very special man was tapped to helm this brand; he was, in essence, to guide it from being a military tool watch brand to becoming an established high luxury brand. That man’s name is Angelo Bonati, and what he didn’t tell anyone at the time was that his vision for Panerai’s future surpassed even their loftiest expectations. Because inside his mind’s eye, he could see where he wanted to guide Panerai, to move beyond a luxury watch brand to become a true manufacture, creating some of the most ambitious in-house technical achievements, including an in-house tourbillon, an equation of time and sidereal time display, and a split seconds chronograph, but always as an expression of Panerai’s roots in function and performance. When I put on a Panerai, I remember all the wonderful times I shared with Angelo Bonati.

I also love Panerai because of two other amazing individuals who worked on the brand early on. The first was the legendary Dr. Franco Cologni, who worked unofficially as Panerai’s chief branding strategist. I remember him telling me, “Wei, Panerai is the brand of Italian military heroes who always lose in war but always show courage.” When I mentioned that perhaps having a military watch with a minute track rather than five-minute markers might aid in Italian military prowess, he just stared at me as if to say, “Please refrain from overt acts of stupidity, my friend.” The other is the wonderful Giampiero Bodino, who created all the early designs for these watches.

I currently have two Panerai watches on heavy rotation. The first is a model from 1998 which was Richemont Group’s first year as the owner of the brand. As I mentioned, this was the year that Panerai famously launched the PAM 21, a platinum cased 47mm Radiomir created in homage to the famous Panerai reference 3646 worn by the Italian Navy’s Arditi Incursori or “Assault Swimmers,” made between 1940 and 1944. The case was a faithful tribute to the cushion-style wired lug military timepiece. Inside the watch featured the new-old-stock Rolex caliber 618 movement made by Cortebert that was part of Panerai’s inventory when Richemont bought the brand. These watches were priced at about EUR 25,000 which, in the context of 1998, was a significant sum.

Said Bonati to me when I interviewed him in 2016, “What happened was, when we took over the brand, my team went to do an inventory of all our assets. They told me there was a box full of old movements and they were thinking of throwing them away. I told them to stop, jumped in my car and drove from Milan to Neuchâtel. I saw it was the full-bridge Rolex movement that was originally in the Radiomir. So I decided to create our first modern Radiomir watch with this vintage movement inside of it.” The watch sold out in two weeks and the EUR 1.5 million generated by these sales basically paid back the investment made by Richemont to buy Panerai in 1997.

1998 was a halcyon year for Panerai. Along with the famous PAM 21, Bonati launched the iconic PAM 1 as well as the wonderful Submersible watches PAM 24 in steel and PAM 25 in titanium. Also in the lineup was a somewhat bizarre Luminor Marina named the PAM 27. This was Panerai’s very first watch with a power reserve indicator. It was a 44mm steel Luminor Marina with a center seconds hand and a date window replete with a loupe. This watch represented a major deviation from the military-style design iconography of the Luminor Marina. It also featured a power reserve indicator that arched across the bottom half of the dial with an arrow-tipped hand. As the movement inside the watch, the Soprod-modified ETA 2892, didn’t boast much of a power reserve to begin with, there was nothing very significant about having this indicator, except that from a design perspective, it was to me incredibly cool.

I’ve always loved this watch and a few years ago, during the pandemic, I noticed one for sale. I was specifically looking for an A-series tritium dial watch. After 1998, Panerai changed the dial to Super-LumiNova and the shape of the power reserve hand went from an arrow to a leaf. This particular watch was numbered 2/500 in the A-series, which meant that it was the second PAM 27 ever made. As I assumed that number 1 was in the hands of either an uber collector or kept by Panerai, I thought this might be the first piece offered to the general public. I quickly pulled the trigger and it was nice to understand that the acquisition of even a moderate grail can be incredibly fulfilling.

Like many brands, Panerai had its hype years which probably crescendoed just before the 2009 global financial crisis. One thing I love about Panerai today is that there is zero connotation of hype whatsoever when you wear its watches. And I consider that to be a very good thing. Because the watches are just so chill and effortless to wear. There is no baggage, no judgement; it’s just a watch. No one on the planet is wearing a Panerai to impress someone else. They are simply wearing it because they love it, and that to me is the very essence of true watch collecting. So much so that now when I see someone wearing a Panerai, I’ll say, “Nice PAM, dude,” and we will invariably strike up a conversation.

No one on the planet is wearing a Panerai to impress someone else. They are simply wearing it because they love it, and that to me is the very essence of true watch collecting.

Another thing is that right now, first generation Panerais are incredibly under-valued. My particular A-series PAM 27 had, at the peak of the Panerai hype craze, reached close to USD 25,000 in terms of secondary value. But when things changed, as they often do with moments of radical appreciation, I was able to purchase my watch for less than one-fifth of that. Even today, many early Panerais are available at a few thousand dollars. For what you might pay for a microbrand watch, you can purchase a Panerai timepiece with incredible authenticity and real quality.

PAM 599 Revolution 10th Anniversary Special Edition

For the PAM 599, we asked for the Super-LumiNova, as well as the dial and hands, to be made in ecru to replicate aged vintage tritium, and also to distinguish our watch from the PAM 195, which was also a black four-liner Luminor Marina. But while all of these design codes were backward looking, the watch would be powered by Panerai’s in-house manual winding movement with an eight-day power reserve — an incredible testament to Angelo Bonati’s vision to transform Panerai into a true manufacture. In totality, the watch was an incredible gesture of friendship and moving beyond words.

Contemporary Panerai

The point is that today, after all the hype has receded into the rear view, when I want a moment of tranquility steeped in one of the most beautiful authentic historical stories, when I want a stunning, purposefully designed watch that at 44mm in diameter looks great on everyone, when I want to wear a watch that is so totally democratic it is impossible to deduce anything about me beyond the dopeness of my horological taste, then I put on a Panerai.

I like Panerai because it’s the non-watch-nerd’s watch. And I say that as an avowed nerd. Because sometimes it just gets tiring talking about internal angles and “moustache” escapements. At 44mm in diameter, yes, it’s certainly outside the social media approved parameter for androgynous wrist swag; however, to me nothing looks more attractive than a Radiomir or a Luminor Marina on a confident woman’s wrist.

With this watch on, you are at once part of the watch collecting world and wonderfully apart from it as well.

Panerais are just great watches for real people and I love wearing them. Chances are, if I see you wearing one, we are going to get along. Because a Panerai guy is not a watch troll. He or she, I’d like to think, has the testicular fortitude to disagree with you to your face rather than hide behind the coward’s cloak of online anonymity. There is something wonderfully pre-social media about Panerai that I love — a directness, an honesty and a genuineness.

Even better, the current CEO, my friend Jean-Marc Pontroué, has done a great job of bringing the story of Panerai to an ever-wider audience and connecting it with the contemporary world in a salient and dynamic way. And I can hardly wait for next year when Panerai will once again turn its focus on my favorite model with its unique lever locking crown guard, which just so happens to coincide with Revolution’s 20th anniversary.