Panerai has been recognized in recent years for its forays into both avant-garde, high-tech case materials and bolder dial colorways. The Luminor Marina Carbotech Blu Notte, an online-exclusive limited edition unveiled this week, is the Florentine-rooted brand’s latest example of both those mission statements. It is the first model in the Panerai portfolio to combine a Carbotech case with the sun-brushed blue dial that the maison refers to in its Italian parlance as “Blu Notte.”

The 44-mm case, in the familiar barrel-shaped Luminor silhouette, is made of Carbotech, a material Panerai inaugurated into the watchmaking world in 2015, with a structure designed to enhance both aesthetics and performance. It attains its distinctive look through a process that compresses long, thin, aesthetically uniform sheets of carbon fibers at a controlled temperature under high pressure together with a high-end polymer called PEEK (Polyether Ether Ketone). The latter binds the composite material, making it even stronger and more durable. The sheets are superimposed and pressed together so that each layer’s fibers are set at a different angle to the ones above and below it, resulting in the material’s warm, matte-black surface with fine variations that makes each case unique. Mechanically, the finished Carbotech is lighter than both ceramic and titanium, more resistant to corrosion, and hypoallergenic. The case features the patented safety-lock crown-protec...