For the 66th Cannes Film Festival held in 2013, Chopard initiated a Green Carpet High Jewellery Collection called The Journey to Sustainable Luxury. In 2014, the coveted Palme D’Or, the highest honour at the Cannes Film Festival, was made with Fairmined-certified gold. This year, about half the 69 pieces in the Red Carpet Collection are from the Green Carpet Collection, which is made with Fairmined-certified gold. This label guarantees that the gold has been mined and processed in compliance with environmental and ethical standards. The diamonds are sourced from the IGC Group, which is certified by the RJC Code of Practices. “A lot of little boxes have to be ticked off in the green area like security, clean mining, not spoiling the planet, no kids working, transparent trading, and miners getting their fixed salary,” Scheufele recounts. “A lot of due diligence has to be achieved before they can have the stamp of Fairmined.” For the 2016 collection, everything that is white, such as diamonds and white gold, are Fairmined, she adds. This year, Chopard was able to introduce coloured gemstones into its Green Carpet Collection. It recently signed a partnership with Gemfields, a global leader in the mining of coloured stones. “We work together with Gemfields for the coloured stones, including mines that produce rubies and amethysts,” Scheufele confirms. In an industry first, emeralds from Zambia will be fully validated by Eco-Age through its Green Carpet Challenge “Principles of Sustainable Excellence”. These gems will be mined according to international best practice in coloured gemstone mining. “The ultimate luxury is in knowing how the product that you buy has been produced. It has added value,” Scheufele says. Fairmined gold, which comes from Colombia and Bolivia, costs about 10% more. “[The mining process] is more tedious, but we absorb the additional cost at Chopard so a normal ring would have the same price,” she adds. “We are stepping up on trying to do all of the high-end collection with Fairmined gold and gems.”
Chopard is perhaps best known for its Happy Diamonds collection. What is perhaps less known is that the original designer of Happy Diamonds was one of the company’s decorators. “He loved to go to the mountains for a walk, and he was watching a waterfall and he had the idea that when water moves and the sun shines into it, it sparkles more,” Scheufele recalls. In the same way, when diamonds are able to move, they sparkle more. “He [the decorator] participated in a design competition. But then he had to make the piece which was a challenge. We had to find out at that time how diamonds could move within two crystals without scratching them,” Scheufele says. Eventually, Chopard worked out how to contain the diamonds so they did not scratch the crystals — by encasing them in a tube. “The gold [tube] is a tiny bit higher than the diamond so only the gold touches the sapphire crystal, not the diamond, so it doesn’t scratch. If the diamond touched the sapphire crystal, it will scratch so it was a technical challenge,” she says. “I was still in school then. My first design inspired by the Happy Diamonds was the Happy Diamonds clown, when I was 16. That was the beginning of all my jewellery designs at Chopard,” Scheufele recalls. The first Happy Diamonds watch was designed for men. Today, the Happy Diamonds watch collection is mainly for ladies. Chopard’s atelier for the high jewellery collection is in Geneva while a sister company in Germany with 300 staff make the boutique jewellery and the smaller Happy Diamonds collection. In addition to Happy Hearts, Scheufele has also started the Happy Dreams, Happy Curves, Chopardissimo and La Strada collections for the boutique. Staying independent
Scheufele’s parents, Karl and Karin Scheufele, acquired Chopard in 1963 from Paul André Chopard, the grandson of Louis-Ulysse Chopard. (The brand’s coveted L.U.C movement takes its initials from the founder.) Their two children, Scheufele and her brother Karl-Friedrich, are co-presidents currently. Karl-Friedrich manages and designs the watches, while Scheufele takes care of the jewellery. Chopard is one of the few independent watch and jewellery companies left in Switzerland. Will it stay independent? “Yes! Yes! Yes!” is Scheufele’s emphatic reply. Of course, there are pros and cons. “When things become tougher, we are more flexible and we react quicker to certain situations. The cons are maybe when the big groups go into shopping centres, they take five to six shops for the different brands so we may have to fight for location,” she adds. “Being a family-owned company has enabled us to undertake a sustainability programme. In the bigger groups, they have endless discussions and then they hardly get started.” The brand has been able to weather the slowdown in the luxe market emanating from China because its jewellery sales are geographically well spread. The Middle East, Europe and China each contributes 20% to sales, with the rest from the US. “China is still one of the biggest global markets. The positive side with Chopard is we also have the jewellery, and jewellery sales have been picking up a lot although watch sales fell. We try to keep the eggs in different baskets,” Scheufele says. Singa pore was one of Chopard’s first markets in Asia, together with Hong Kong. “The brand is pretty well known here, and also loved,” she points out. Scheufele and Karl-Friedrich visit Singapore regularly. “Sometimes, we come together. I will come twice in a row, then my brother will also come. It depends on what we are presenting. If it’s a mechanical watch launch, it’s more my brother’s field. Nevertheless, I love the men’s watches so I am pretty much familiar with everything,” she explains. “It doesn’t mean he wouldn’t sell a Happy Diamonds watch or even that emerald,” she says, referring to the 95-carat emerald from the Red Carpet Collection. As for succession planning, it is a bit early. Karl-Friedrich has two girls and a boy. They have just finished school and are going to university. “We’ll have to see if they are interested in the field. My father, at the time when we both started, didn’t push us to go and join the family business. You have to love what you do,” Scheufele says. This article appeared in the Options of Issue 751 (Oct 24) of The Edge Singapore.
