Yesterday I attended Panerai's SIHH 2014 preview event at Mr. C Beverly Hills on Beverwil Drive. Start time was 6pm with end time of 9:30pm. Panerai rented out the entire Pool & Terrace area, and the theme of the night was "Mediterranean-Inspired Summer Evening."
Once you enter the Pool & Terrace area, you hear the party music coming from the speakers along the perimeter. The DJ that night was awesome and one of the best I've ever heard before. Maybe because he played all the music that I like? In any case, he did an awesome job DJ'ing that night, and many other guests said the same thing. Below is a short video clip to capture the ambience of the evening.
It was a perfect California summer evening. The light was still shining above but slowly making its way down but still giving us perfect lighting to take our pictures. There was a constant cool mild breeze so it was never hot. The always lovely and effervescent Michele Gallagher (lower right corner), Panerai North America PR Director, organized this evening's event. Below are pictures of the venue, and you can see it was an ideal day to host this event.
The white sofas provided an elegant contrast with the wood flooring, and there were heaters scattered across the venue for when it gets more chilly during the later part of the evening.
There were many old friends and long time Paneristi's here, so it's always nice to see them every year to catch up. Mr. Rafael Alvarez, President of Panerai North America, in in the below picture wearing a navy blue suit and chatting with an older gentleman with white hair and another Panerai fan wearing a light blue blazer. A photographer was diligently taking event photos throughout the entire night as well.
The new SIHH 2014 collection were housed in vitrines placed along the perimeter of the pool area. Below are the new Panerai pocket watches - PAM447 rose gold & PAM529 white gold - which both are limited editions of 50 pieces each. Both are 50mm and house the beautiful skeletonized in-house P.3001/10 movement.
Below is the black ceramic PAM446 tourbillon pocketwatch from last year's SIHH 2013. This one is also a 50 piece limited edition but is larger sized at 59mm.
Below is the 48mm "Lo Scienziato" which is the PAM528 Luminor 1950 Tourbillon GMT Ceramica. This model also debuted last year as well along with the above PAM446. Following the picture below is also is a video of the PAM528 so you can see the tourbillon in action.
My favorite piece of the night is the below 44mm stainless steel PAM590 exclusive to the North America market. I guess you can call it PAM203's little brother since it has the same "8 Giorni Brevettato" at 3 o'clock.
The PAM590 houses the 8-day manual wind P.5000 movement, but unfortunately you can't see it since the watch comes with a solid caseback. Hopefully one day Panerai will release another variant of the PAM590 with a sapphire caseback. If they do this, this watch would be the perfect Panerai for many collectors IMO.
Next are the new Panerai Radiomir 1940 Chronographs with Minerva movements - PAM519 rose gold with brown dial (left), PAM518 platinum with ivory dial (center), and the PAM520 white gold with black dial (right). Sorry for the reflections and glare on the watch crystals. It was literally impossible to snap any good pictures of these Radiomirs in the vitrines.
The rose gold PAM519 is a limited edition of 100 pieces.
The PAM518 is a limited edition of 50 pieces.
Below are more pictures of these new Radiomir 1940 Chronographs for a clearer view.
Here's a side view picture with less glare.
Below are the PAM502 & PAM503 Radiomir 1940 Monopusher Chronographs from last year's SIHH 2013. I apologize for the picture glares
And finally for the watches, the last watch is the PAM538 Radiomir 8 Days GMT in rose gold from SIHH 2013. This Radiomir has the vivid blue dial with baton hour markers at 12 and 6 o'clock. The blue dial changes to different shades of blue at various angles.
And below are some foodie pics with my PAM195 that I wore that night.
The wait staff and servers were attentive and brought out a constant stream of hors devoures. The bartender below mixed a pretty good pomegranate martini! And for dessert, we had mini ice cream cones and some other various sweets.
Thank you Panerai for a lovely fantastic event - the weather was perfect, the ambience was elegant, the music was AWESOME, the people were great, and the watches were beautiful as usual. A big thanks to Michele, Chad, and Rafael for a memorable event which will be tough to surpass next year!
Salut!!
Cheers,
Anthony