Paneristi: 25 years of passion for Panerai

What an honour for GMT and WorldTempus, the only media outlets invited to meet these extraordinary personalities, who are waiting for us upstairs in the Panerai boutique with a glass of champagne, deep in conversation with Alessandro Ficarelli: Paddy Conway, Raphael Shin, Assaf Burstein, Nad Zakem and Stefano Atzeni. They all first met behind a screen, under pseudonyms, before becoming friends in real life. They have all, at some point, encountered a watch with an unmistakable cushion-shaped case. And they all share the same conviction: with Panerai, the watch is merely the gateway.

A series of love at first sights

The story begins in 1999, in front of a London shop window. Stuck in transit after a delayed flight, Paddy Conway is killing time. “I wasn’t really a watch enthusiast. I had inherited my father’s two Omega watches, but I had never bought one myself,” he recalls. A Panerai draws him inside. By coincidence, on the plane he comes across a magazine article about the very same model, the PAM 9, which he cuts out and still keeps today. Back in the United States, he buys it from a dealer in Chicago, then posts a question online. Two Scots reply, followed by a bomb-disposal expert from Detroit. Conway himself was a gardener. “Within a week, I had four friends, one of whom knew his way around the internet, unlike me, and was able to develop an online platform. A hundred members signed up in a month, then thousands, then hundreds of thousands!”

Assaf Burstein, meanwhile, knew the brand well before its revival. A collector since the mid-1980s, he attended auctions where unusual military watches were circulating, watches that enthusiasts at the time regarded as Rolexes, even when the name Panerai appeared on the dial. His first modern Panerai arrived in 2003: a solid-gold PAM 140. “An iconic watch for me. I still have it.”

The same model, the same love at first sight for Raphael Shin. In 2007, at a New York retailer, someone hands him the yellow-gold PAM 140 with a carbon-fibre dial. “I put it on my wrist and thought: I have to have it.” A colleague then tells him about “a bunch of crazy people who love Panerai”. He posts his first wrist shot and never leaves the community.

Nad Zakem discovers the brand in 2002 while looking for matching watches for himself and his wife. He leaves without a Panerai, but remembers the image of a pearwood box, the only one of its kind in a display window dominated by the major groups. For his 40th birthday, in 2004, he buys himself a PAM 88 GMT, which he still owns. “It’s a rabbit hole: one PAM leads to two, and so on.”

For Stefano Atzeni, an Italian who has lived in Switzerland since 2006, the turning point came in 1997, when Sylvester Stallone wore the brand in Daylight. A cash-strapped student, he waits until 2014 to buy second-hand the Panerai he had dreamed of seventeen years earlier. A quiet reader of paneristi.com, he learns that a P-Day will be held in Venice. He takes his partner along without telling her they will not be alone, lends her his Submersible, which he “never saw again”, and proposes to her. She says yes, earning him the nickname “Mr. Romantic”. “Meeting hundreds of people from all over the world in person, people I had only known by their usernames, was a revelation.” He introduces us to his wife that evening, after our panel, and she is still proudly wearing the Panerai from that time.

A watch that gets strangers talking

When we ask them what matters most to them in a Panerai, whether design, history or innovation, Nad Zakem answers without hesitation that it comes down to a look: “It stands out in a jungle of watches. Back then, it was in a class of its own, in terms of appearance, design and size.” Raphael Shin shares the same preference: “I’m not obsessed with movements. I like the way things look. Others may prefer the history. It varies from person to person, and yet we all get along very well.”

Because the watch’s real power lies elsewhere. “If you walk into a bar and someone is wearing a Panerai, you don’t hesitate to introduce yourself. With another brand, you keep quiet,” observes Paddy Conway. Assaf Burstein remembers the loneliness of business trips, sitting alone at a hotel bar in Singapore or Chicago. “That ended with Paneristi.” All it took was announcing your arrival online for a member to meet you at the airport, organise a dinner or even put you up. At a gathering in the Midlands, an English Paneristi welcomed him into his home. When his wife asked how he knew his guest, he replied: from an internet forum.

Paddy Conway sums up this spirit with a reference to a famous Geneva watch advertisement: “Here, they tell you that you never really own a certain watch, you merely look after it for your children. For us, you don’t really own a Panerai until you share it.” Telling people where and why you bought it, what it means to you: “It’s a seed, and the seed just keeps growing.”

A quarter of a century without a roadmap

Did Paddy Conway imagine that paneristi.com would last twenty-five years? “Honestly, nobody knew anything. It wasn’t a business project; there was no banker and no return on investment. It was organic, like the plants I put in the ground: if you don’t water them, they die. Every day, buckets of water came in through the internet.” He misses the days when people wrote paragraphs rather than instant comments, and rejects the role of visionary founder: “Paneristi belongs to the Paneristi. There is no tower, nobody at the top. The best people are at the bottom, and I think I’m one of them.”

The community’s greatest achievement? Raphael Shin does not hesitate: “We have heart.” Auctions, raffles and fundraising campaigns have helped support members in difficulty, charities and victims of flooding in Asia. “Heart is what I like most. People come just after that, but without good people, you don’t have much.”

Assaf Burstein, who has attended every P-Day except two since the Cologne edition, the second one, has his answer ready when asked about his favourite edition: “It’s always the next one. Right now, it’s Geneva.” He also mentions the 2010 PAM 360, a Paneristi edition designed by a member and named in tribute to a deceased moderator: “If you look at this watch, you understand the whole community.” It embodies the height of an era before social media, when everyone would turn on their computer “before even having coffee” to catch up on what they had missed overnight.

How can the flame be kept alive? For Nad Zakem, who was already active on the forum before owning his first watch, everything comes down to passing things on and meeting people. “The brand brought us together, but it’s the friendships that keep us together. That’s what sustainability means.”

As for Stefano Atzeni, he is savouring a Swiss P-Day that he had long been calling for. In Amsterdam in 2019, he asked Jean-Marc Pontroué, then Panerai’s CEO, when the event would come to Switzerland. Pontroué immediately retorted: “And when are you going to organise one?” Atzeni put his name on the waiting list and has been following up ever since, determined to be the first to bring P-Day to Switzerland. The official announcement came in New York in October 2025. “I had a year to prepare it, which was just enough.”

“Much more than a watch”

Having joined Panerai in 2005, Alessandro Ficarelli came to know the brand by reading the discussion threads on paneristi.com. “Many brands would love to have a community like this, but it’s not a marketing story. It wasn’t built by the brand; it’s real and authentic.” His phone number circulates freely among members, who contact him about everything from a joke to a tornado.

The benefits are immense when it comes to reconstructing the brand’s history and better showcasing its heritage: “We receive feedback from purists. And Panerai’s history, shrouded in military secrecy until 1993, is reconstructed piece by piece every year.” The limitations are also acknowledged: “We can’t please everyone. If all the Paneristi ask for 47 mm watches, I can’t develop a collection made exclusively of 47 mm watches.” His position remains clear: “Heritage has always been, and will always remain, at the heart of Panerai’s strategy.” Around seven special editions have been developed with the Paneristi, and every P-Day gives members a preview of the new releases presented at Watches and Wonders.

This dialogue has its lessons. “More than any particular idea, I take away certain lessons: stay authentic and respect who we are. We can innovate and attract new audiences, but in the Panerai way.” The brand acknowledges its mistakes, for example regarding water resistance, and makes corrections. “Feedback is a gift. When we can’t meet a request, I always try to explain why.” The design itself stems from historical models: “We evolve it, but the goal remains to add value.” The Paneristi editions illustrate this, from the original PAM 195 to the PAM 911 unveiled in Hong Kong, the last of the Angelo Bonati era, and on to the two models marking the 25th anniversary. Now become unobtainable grails, they are a reminder that every watch here carries a story. “For the Paneristi, Panerai is much more than a watch. Whatever its price, even the simplest model can be someone’s ultimate dream.”

Paddy Conway praises this closeness: “Alessandro is like a buddy. When he calls, there’s heart behind it, not business.” And he concludes: “We are a brotherhood. Every one of us would throw his watch on the table for a good cause. The watch is the key to getting in. But today, we no longer need a key.”