Hello and welcome to the Philips Watches podcast. I'm your host Logan Baker and I'm joined here today by Mr. Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, the co-president of Chopard and president of Ferdinand 2, as well as my colleague Alex Ghotbi, the head of watches for Phillips in Europe and the Middle East. Today we're talking about Chopard Ferdinand 2, the legacy of the Scheufele family at the brand, and the Nissance Dumonto, one of the most interesting and astonishing watchmaking projects in recent history.
1 minute 50 going once, 1 minute 50 going twice.
To start us off, I'd like to ask Mr. Scheufele a little bit about the beginning of his time at Chopard. Your family acquired the brand in 1963 when you were five years old, I believe. Correct.
Karl-Friedrich Scheufele
0:53 ↗
Very true. In 1963 my father acquired Chopard, a very small outfit in Geneva run by the grandson of the founder. It was a very small workshop. My father had been looking to acquire a Swiss or Geneva-based company. Geneva was very important for him. I come from a fourth-generation family company in Germany where we made watches using Swiss movements. My father said the only future was to move to Switzerland and acquire a company to launch a brand. In 1963 that was a daring move. They visited a few companies, and the last one on the list was Chopard. Mr. Chopard never answered the phone until one Sunday when they were about to leave Geneva. He answered, and on Monday morning they had an appointment. Two weeks later the deal was made. That is how the Scheufele family came to Chopard. I grew up with watchmaking conversations at lunch and dinner. I lived close to our company in Germany and used to play with watch parts in the watchmaking atelier. I made cars out of watch parts. I was born into the watch industry and have stayed there ever since.
That's amazing. Growing up around a watch and jewelry brand is one thing, but fast forward to the '90s and you're investing in building your own movement manufacturer. What was the impetus for that?
Karl-Friedrich Scheufele
4:23 ↗
In the late '90s, or even earlier, I sensed that to be recognized in the watchmaking field you had to create your own movements. This was not acknowledged at the time. I convinced my family to follow me on this project, and we put together a team. The first mission was to create an automatic movement with a micro rotor. This movement, now called the LUC 196, is legendary. To be invisible, we relocated the project to Fleurier, a quiet place, and rented a small space from the Swatch Group. With the help of Mr. Pameani, we started working on it, then internalized it. In 1996 we presented the first automatic movement with a micro rotor and twin barrels. It was a very interesting package, chronometer certified and to Geneva seal standards. That was the beginning of Chopard Manufacture in Fleurier. The company grew to about 250 collaborators. Subsequently, a number of movements followed, one of which you are wearing on your wrist.
Yes sir, I'm wearing the Chopard LUC Sport 2000. I purchased it a few months ago and absolutely loving it. So Alex, what was the reaction from collectors in the '90s when Chopard came onto the scene with the LUC series and the caliber 196?
When I was listening to Mr. Scheufele, it brought back a lot of memories. In the '90s when I was much younger, the men wanted a Mille Miglia and the women wanted a Happy Diving watch. The brand was always there. But with the arrival of the LUC 196, it was a game changer. The only watch forum that existed was TimeZone, and when the movement and watch were unveiled, it was a discovery. I believe the movement or the watch received a TimeZone award. Mr. Scheufele, you can maybe correct.
Karl-Friedrich Scheufele
8:18 ↗
In fact, the watch received an award in Switzerland called Watch of the Year in 1996 or 1997. That was quite an achievement. Competitors did not expect this from Chopard. In the beginning they questioned whether it was really homemade, but I think we proved them wrong.
Absolutely. I think what was incredible was that it ticked a lot of boxes. It was in-house, which was just the beginning of the desire for in-house movements that everyone talks about today, close to 30 years ago. It was slim, had a micro rotor, a beautiful dial, and a lovely case. The finishing was very important. Today we talk a lot about hand finish, which represents the effort and time, especially when made by human hands. For the horological collecting community, it was a total game changer in the way they perceived Chopard, entering the elite circle of high horology brands even though the watch was not complicated.
Absolutely. And I think when collectors look at it today, Chopard is very well accepted into that upper echelon. But at the time it was a big investment. Was there any pushback from your other family members to put that much attention into this segment?
We took it step by step, so there was no burden at the time. It was very time consuming though. We started with a room not bigger than this, and we had to add all the different crafts one by one. Decoration was not taught at watchmaking school. We had to bring in age-old techniques, have a teacher and pupils, and work our way up to a very high level. We struggled with machines, R&D, and everything had to be put together until we had a small manufacturer.
So your vision of movement manufacturing seems very tied to your love for horological history. Can you tell us where that interest in the history of watchmaking and timekeeping began?
