NEW CAVENDISH JEWELLERS
Your New Timepiece with Jitesh Shah
Jitesh Shah is a Director at New Cavendish Jewellers, Marylebone High Street’s exclusive destination for Haute Horology & Exquisite Jewellery. Official agents for many of the world’s leading watch Brands alongside independently curated jewellery focusing on Diamonds & precious stones. Established in 1982, New Cavendish Jewellers is one of Marylebone’s oldest & still independent retailers.
It all began in 1860 with Guido Panerai. He opened the first shop for watchmakers in Florence that also doubled as a school for burgeoning watchmakers. Over one hundred and fifty years later, the brand continues to fascinate, divide yet captivate the imagination of watch enthusiasts worldwide. Offering an instantly recognisable case design mirrored with an extremely focused brand DNA, Panerai is perhaps one of the few brands that has survived and prospered despite its very focused creations. Panerai has chosen not to attempt to market themselves to the entire market, rather creating one of the most loyal followings in modern horology, often known affectionally as Paneristi.
The real beginning of the brand began in 1916 when Radiomir was developed, a Radium based powder that presented incredible luminous properties that proved useful for the Italian Navy, to whom Panerai had already been supplying precision instruments. It was not until twenty years later in 1936 were the first ever Panerai timepieces created for the Navy’s frogmen - the elite branch of underwater tactical soldiers. Records show that not only were only ten pieces made, they were remarkably similar to their modern counterparts in their 47mm case diameter, a size very atypical of that era. A few years later, the watches were created in a more regular production but most notably two discs were layered upon one another in a “sandwich” fashion that would allow the Radium to be even more visible. This sandwich style dial is an element Panerai especially has become renown for but more interestingly, it was the Radiomir family that was created first with the wiry lugs seen in contemporary models. It was later in 1940 that the first solid lugs were added to create a more solid timepiece for sturdiness in the field. Though the brand’s case design has become intentionally very distinctive, a collection that has been revisited in recent years is their Mare Nostrum, which was a more simple design with a round case and chronograph complication but more importantly, the beginning of a focus on the security of the crown. This intention sees another first for the company as the now iconic bridged crown guard is patented in 1956, around the same time Radiomir is superseded by a newer luminous element; namely, Luminor, giving birth to Panerai’s second family. This next generation of timepieces uses the stronger case structure requested by the Italian Navy but now also this new crown guard system thus laying the blueprint for the iconic design we are familiar with today. The Seventies saw the brand leave the family for the
New Cavendish Jewellers, 2 Marylebone High Street, London, W1U 4NF