Borrowed Time: Panerai Luminor Marina DMLS – 44MM PAM 1662
Panerai has staked a claim in the luxury watch world as a top-tier innovator in applying high-tech materials and industrial processes from outside the world of watchmaking to develop timepieces that are distinctly avant-garde yet still classically Panerai. With the Luminor Marina DMLS – 44 MM, which I had the opportunity to wear and review earlier this year, the Florence-founded Swiss watchmaker has rolled out a watch with an undeniably austere aesthetic ? its monochrome gray colorway moved Panerai to initially nickname it “Tutto Grigio,” Italian for “all gray” ? that belies the high-tech complexity of its interior and of its origins.
At least two of the cutting-edge materials that emerged from Panerai’s R&D workshop (called, again in Italian, Laborotorio di Idee) are on display in this handsome 44-mm timepiece. One of these is Direct Metal Laser Sintering (or DMLS), a technology that uses a 3D printing process to shape the titanium for the case, which in its final stage is incredibly lightweight on the wrist and boasts an appealingly sleek matte finish. A high-powered optic laser accomplishes the sintering of the titanium powder, creating a solid shape that grows 30 microns at a time and has a hollow cavity within it.
The other ultramodern material applied to the model is Carbotech, which is used for the dark gray, tapering bezel. Introduced to watchmaking by Panerai in 2015, the material results from compressing thin sheet...
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Luxury Watch )