Panerai’s Submersible resurfaces as a stand-alone line

Less than a year since taking over Officine Panerai, CEO Jean-Marc Pontroué is already making his first moves in re-engineering the brand by carving out the maison’s Luminor Submersible into a new stand-alone Submersible line. This separates Panerai’s novelties into four main collections: the Luminor, the Radiomir, the Due, and now the Submersible. No surprise, then, that the focus of Panerai’s SIHH 2019 was a new collection of Submersibles.

“The Submersible will not be a subsegment of the Luminor any more. All of the Lab d’Idee applications that we have initiated will go towards feeding the development of the Submersible. This line will be the first to benefit in all the priorities for new materials,” says Pontroué, who took over from longtime stalwart Angelo Bonati last April after six years spearheading Roger Dubuis.

With a new creative director coming on board only last month, it will take a little longer for Pontroué to realise any major new designs, so it makes sense for the new CEO to start making his mark by carving out the Submersible, not only to better distinguish it from the other Luminors but also make it his own.

The brand extends its affiliations with African-born Swiss Earth warrior Mike Horn and world champion French freediver Guillaume Néry by dedicating novelties to them. The new Submersible Mike Horn Edition is inspired by the man – and his principles.

More than just a professional diving watch, the 47mm timepiece is built to withstand the extreme conditions Horn usually faces in his adventures, and is also built from Eco-titanium, innovative recycled titanium first introduced into watchmaking by Panerai, as well as recycled PET straps.

There are two versions of the Mike Horn Edition, the PAM984 and PAM985. Both feature a unidirectional rotating bezel, which has a new design compared to the classic Panerai, enabling each dive’s duration to be safely calculated. PAM984 uses green Super-Luminova on the index markers and on the large skeleton hands, set against a black sandwich dial.

The date counter is at 3 o’clock while a second-hand subdial sits at 9 o’clock, together with the inscriptions “Panerai Submersible” and “Automatic 300m/1000ft” silk-screened on the sapphire crystal. Both editions are powered by the in-house P.9010 automatic calibre with a power reserve of three days.