The new buzz phrase for business is “profit with purpose”. So how are leaders in the luxury and consumer industries facing the need to adapt to increasingly stringent sustainability criteria? Interviews by Ella Johnson and Candice Tucker

For brands, ensuring that consumer and luxury products comply with standards for Environmental, Sustainability and Governance (ESG) factors can be tough. How much water pollution do your steel suppliers create? What is the carbon footprint of your distributor in South America? How does the main supplier of your fasteners treat its staff?

These questions are becoming paramount for any company expecting to survive and thrive in the coming decades. Consumers are increasingly asking if products are sustainably created, if brands treat their staff and suppliers ethically. A company may still make profits on the back of a high-carbon footprint now, but it is far less likely to be able to do so in 10 or 20 years time.

We spoke to industry leaders across sectors for their insights into succeeding in a new era.

JEWELLERY
CAROLINE SCHEUFELE
Artistic director and co-president, Chopard
In 2013 Caroline Scheufele launched Chopard’s Journey to Sustainable Luxury, an in-house programme that committed the Swiss luxury jeweller to responsible sourcing. The brand has also forged a philanthropic relationship with the Alliance for Responsible Mining, helping gold-mining communities achieve Fairmined status.

LUX: Chopard’s engagement with ESG predates that of most jewellery houses. How did it start?
Caroline Scheufele: As a family-run business, ethics have always been at our heart. More than 40 years ago, my parents developed a vertically integrated in-house production system and invested in mastering all crafts internally. This means the full traceability of our gold supply chain is guaranteed through our operating model. It is based on a closed-loop system that also enables us to recycle pre-consumer gold scraps or “production waste” in our gold foundry.

LUX: How do you ensure responsible sourcing?
CS: In 2018 we became the first jewellery and watch maison to commit to using 100 per cent ethical gold for our watch and jewellery pieces. It is a bold commitment, but one we have to pursue if we are to make a difference to the lives of the people who make our work possible.

LUX: How does research help?
CS: Our R&D works to make our raw materials and production practices more sustainable. One example is the creation of ethically produced Lucent steel, which took four years research. It’s an alloy made from 70 per cent recycled metals and is 50 per cent harder than other steels. It also helps minimise our carbon footprint.

LUX: Does your model help or hinder creativity?
CS: Working with responsibly sourced material stimulates my creativity. The Insofu emerald, which we presented in Paris Haute Couture Week 2022, was discovered in the Kagem mine in Zambia and is one of the most important gems found for weight, quality and traceability. By buying a raw stone, we can follow its entire journey to final creation. Our craftspeople will cut the raw emerald and collect all the cut gems. We will then incorporate sustainability into our creations through eco-design thinking.

LUX: What does it mean for the future of luxury?
CS: True luxury comes only when you know the handprint of your supply chain.

chopard.com

AUTOMOTIVE
MARKUS SCHÄFER
Chief technology officer and member of the board of management, Mercedes-Benz Group AG

Under Markus Schäfer, Mercedes-Benz has embarked on an electrification plan that will see battery electric vehicles (BEV) in every segment by the end of 2022, and an all-electric fleet by 2030. It is the first premium automobile manufacturer whose climate objectives have been verified by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTI) in line with the Paris Agreement.

LUX: What are the challenges of sustainability in the automotive sector?
Markus Schäfer: Our main ambition has always been to build the world’s most desirable cars. At the same time, our framework is changing dramatically, so we are rethinking our entire business model, with sustainability as our guiding principle. Our goal is to take the lead in electric driving and car software. And we will make our new car fleet CO2-neutral by 2039 – along the entire value chain and life cycle. It is a giant challenge, but for our brand it is also exciting.

LUX: Are luxury and sustainability compatible?
MS: Luxury has different meanings for everyone. In essence, it is simply about being completely at ease. Now it includes knowing your products and services helps reduce our footprint. For us, luxury is linked to setting new technological standards, and the age of sustainable and software-driven mobility gives us opportunities to do so. We think it will also make us interesting for new, younger customers who live a mindful-luxury lifestyle. At Mercedes-Benz, we want to combine our traditional strengths – innovation, safety, design, and comfort – with mobility that is sustainable and utterly intuitive. Luxury has always been a part of our DNA, and a driver of innovation.

LUX: If everyone moves towards electrification, what will differentiate your products?
MS: We think digital and sustainable innovations will be the top USP in luxury cars. With our Vision EQXX technology-programme prototype, we achieve more than 620 miles (1,000km) on a single battery charge. We are also increasing the use of recycled materials and researching new sustainable materials – we will use almost totally CO2-free steel in various models from 2025. With innovative car software we can offer customers the gift of time: we were the first car manufacturer to gain approval for conditionally automated Level 3 driving, without any safety compromises.

mercedes-benz.com

FASHION
MARIE-CLAIRE DAVEU
Chief sustainability officer, Kering

It was in 2011 under Marie-Claire Daveu that French luxury-goods group Kering introduced its innovative Environmental Profit & Loss (EP&L), an initiative to quantify environmental impact across the company’s operations and supply chains. It is now standard practice elsewhere.

LUX: Can collaboration help green transition?
Marie-Claire Daveu: Even a big company is not big enough to change a paradigm – it has to cross-fertilise with peers. For us, collaboration is in the DNA of our sustainability strategy. When we speak about sustainability, it includes being an open source and sharing our best practices. It is also about working with other sectors. It’s why we’re part of the One Planet Business for Biodiversity (OP2B) coalition, which includes food companies and the likes of Unilever. You may question why we have joined it, but regenerative agriculture is as important to us as it is to the food industry. Both of us take our raw materials from nature. We have the same origin.

LUX: Why did Kering invest in the vintage fashion platform Vestiaire Collective in 2021?
MCD: We were quite disruptive to go into vintage. It was our way of proving that purpose and profit go together. For us, it is interesting to have a seat on the Vestiaire board and see how we can develop a green e-commerce. There are new challenges with packaging, transportation and how we engage with customers. We are only at the beginning, but I think the idea of a second life will evolve in luxury and beyond.

LUX: Should leadership come from the top?
MCD: Sustainability is becoming more important to consumers and shareholders, but there is so much to do that, unless leaders prioritise it, you won’t do it. Luxury leaders must push for it both inside and outside their direct ecosystems.

LUX: Can fashion ever be sustainable?
MCD: You have to give people hope and solutions. I believe in a circular economy, upcycling, recycling – a 360 approach. With nature it’s about equilibrium. You have a problem if you take too much. But if you give nature the possibility to regenerate itself, there is no issue.

kering.com

TRAVEL
SVEN-OLOF LINDBLAD
Co-chair and founder, Lindblad Expeditions

Sven-Olof Lindblad is an Ocean Elder whose work combines marine conservation, education and eco-tourism. Lindblad Expeditions has been at the forefront of environmentally sensitive expedition travel since its founding in 1979, raising more than $19m for conservation and scientific research and forming a strategic alliance with National Geographic.

LUX: Are there opportunities in sustainability?
Sven-Olof Lindblad: The more people think about sustainability, the more valuable the natural assets become that travel companies need to run their businesses. If you place more emphasis on protecting coral reefs, companies that want to incorporate coral reefs as part of their travel offering will have something that is more valuable and meaningful to travellers. But there are economic impacts to sustainability which makes things expensive. Some businesses don’t care enough yet because they think their audiences don’t, particularly in mass tourism where every dollar spent becomes significant. So companies have to believe, as I do, that sustainable behaviour is important, otherwise they are making decisions that, on the surface, do not make economic sense in the short term.

LUX: Do the wealthy have a responsibility to travel more responsibly?
SOL: I’m not that black and white. I might be sitting on my own private yacht now, but I’m on a research mission in Panama for a month interacting with Panama’s government to figure out how to evolve responsible tourism there. One of the most effective ways of doing that is by taking a boat, exploring the coastlines. Is that bad? I think it is using a boat to positive effect. There isn’t technology at the moment that allows us to eliminate burning carbon entirely, so we offset everything we do.

LUX: How do your expeditions ensure meaningful action in sustainability?
SOL: We take a lot of action in a variety of forms. We have a fund where we raise and distribute approximately $3m per year to conservation, activities, education and exploration. But it is also meaningful to engage people, making it possible for them to have experiences in the natural world that inspire them to think differently about natural assets. They can then change behaviours in their own lives or even create certain changes of action in their spheres of influence. That’s important, too.

world.expeditions.com

YACHTING
JAMIE EDMISTON
Chief executive, Edmiston; chair, Levidian
Yacht brokerage firm Edmiston has collaborated with climate-tech business Levidian to bring its LOOP decarbonisation technology to yachting. The device is expected to deliver significant benefits to battery technology, paints, coatings, and desalinisation systems in the maritime sector.

LUX: What are the biggest barriers to the decarbonisation of yachting?
Jamie Edmiston: Nearly all yachts burn diesel in their engines, so, until someone comes up with a suitable alternative engine, short-term innovations have to be in cleaning the emissions before they enter the atmosphere. Medium-term, we have to find other fuels than diesel, whether powered by battery or hydrogen.

LUX: How is Edmiston innovating in the sector?
JE: We have become involved with the climate-tech business Levidian, which has developed a LOOP device that takes methane, the main constituent of natural gas, and turns it into carbon, graphene and hydrogen. Around 40 per cent of the carbon is removed just by that one process, which means that all the gas being used is already decarbonised by 40 per cent. That makes a big impact. The LOOP device will not necessarily power a yacht, but the application we see is producing hydrogen at the source where it is needed. You can put that reactor in a factory, or a shipyard, where you’re taking methane and burning it, to decarbonise the gas that comes in. Moving hydrogen is complicated, but this way you can convert the natural gas into hydrogen at the source, where it is required, and then put it straight into whichever vehicle needs it.

LUX: How can yachting innovations benefit the maritime sector as a whole?
JE: Yacht owners are prepared to invest money, time and resources into developing new technologies – whether that be diesel- electric propulsion, or hydrogen-ethanol battery technology – within the maritime space, and this can ultimately find its way into commercial shipping. Yachting is the crucible of innovation for the maritime industry.

edmiston.com
levidian.com

SPIRITS
KIM MAROTTA
Global vice president of environmental sustainability, Beam Suntory

In 2021 spirits behemoth Beam Suntory – which counts Courvoisier and Sipsmith among its repertoire – launched Proof Positive, a holistic, $1bn commitment to promoting positive endeavours in nature, consumer and community across its businesses.

LUX: Where do the challenges lie in decarbonising the spirits sector?
Kim Marotta: The main issues in the sector are in water, transport and packaging. Water presents an enormous opportunity for positive environmental impact, and we have established water sanctuaries in Kentucky at Maker’s Mark and Jim Beam. We’ve also set out an extensive programme of peatland water sanctuaries in the Scottish Highlands, not to mention our pioneering work in the tequila industry, where our Casa Sauza brand has the lowest carbon footprint and water usage. With transport, there is a fantastic opportunity for the sector to influence and partner with logistics groups to ensure everyone is working together for more sustainable methods of transport. Brands around the world are also looking at how to make their packaging more sustainable, whether that is in conducting a lifecycle analysis on every piece of packaging, as we are doing, or prioritising right weighting to minimise materials usage and waste, or even the total redesign of bottles, which we did this year with Courvoisier.

LUX: How can companies move their ESG agendas beyond reporting and compliance towards business enablement?
KM: Companies should not be afraid to set out the most ambitious targets they can, even if the specific road map isn’t totally clear. Whether they are unsure if the technology is there or what the commitment to R&D might be over the next few years, the solution is simple: set aggressive targets, make the necessary investments in technology to hit those targets and commit to accountability and transparency, showing evidence of progress along the way. If companies aren’t setting aggressive targets, they aren’t going to make the impact they can.

beamsuntory.com

CONSUMER GOODS
REBECCA MARMOT
Chief sustainability officer, Unilever
When consumer-goods giant Unilever introduced its Sustainable Living Plan in 2010, it became a benchmark for corporate sustainability. Under Rebecca Marmot, the company has also made interventions in the Paris Agreement and in the creation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

LUX: What is essential to the success of a company’s ESG agenda?
Rebecca Marmot: Success relies on everyone being on board. We need to draw on the ingenuity and experience of experts and peers across the globe to meet our sustainability targets. We know that pioneering new practices requires partnership, so we also need to shun silos in favour of systems thinking. For example, at Unilever we take a holistic approach across both climate and nature, because we recognise that action to solve one crisis can help to address the other.

LUX: How is Unilever working to eliminate Scope 1 and 2 emissions – those generated by your operations?
RM: One of our biggest challenges is that the lion’s share of our emissions are outside our direct control. About 60 per cent come from raw materials and packaging. To reach our target, we are working across our value chain and engaging suppliers, partners and consumers in our decarbonisation journey. We can’t control how long consumers spend in the shower or how they source their energy, but we know consumers do increasingly want to align their purchasing power with their values. We want to make it easy for them to choose our trusted brands, knowing that they are made with respect for people and the planet.

LUX: Is there a risk that those who are last to take on the costs of a green transition will be winners in the short term?
RM: Without action to make supply chains sustainable, companies won’t be able to source the raw materials they need, and operations will be stalled by floods and extreme weather. Laggards will also be hit by taxes on carbon and virgin plastic – these are coming down the line.

unilever.com

CLIMATE TECHNOLOGY
HEATHER CLANCY
Editorial director, Greenbiz; co-host, Greenbiz 350 podcast
GreenBiz 350 is a weekly podcast delivering stories on sustainable business and climate tech. Co-host Heather Clancy specialises in chronicling the role of technology in enabling corporate climate action and the transition to a clean, inclusive and regenerative economy.

LUX: How should companies be balancing the ‘E’ and ‘S’ of ESG?
Heather Clancy: Corporations are not spending enough time thinking about how environmental justice is embedded into their corporate sustainability strategies. There is still a huge disconnect between a company’s corporate perception of what environmental justice means and how it acts as a business.

LUX: What role can early-stage climate tech play in decarbonisation?
HC: Small, innovative companies have the opportunity to really innovate and become the new suppliers for larger companies – for example by producing alternative materials, such as mushroom-based packaging to replace plastic or Styrofoam. It is not coincidental that there are so many corporate venture funds now that are focused on climate technologies, because these corporations are going to benefit from that innovation when the company goes public down the line. The digitisation of sustainability is also really important, because it is becoming part of the financial infrastructure of the companies themselves. These kinds of tools can help people make investments in other climate technologies more easily.

LUX: What’s the biggest barrier to scaling up climate technology?
HC: If there’s one thing that we really are lacking from corporations, it is their voice on supporting sustainable policy.

LUX: What should the wealthy be doing?
HC: They should model better behaviour and put their money where it counts. The wealthy can help small businesses get on the ESG bandwagon, for example. Buying from these companies will enable them to make the vital shift to greener practices.

greenbiz.com

Chopard’s Artistic Director Caroline Scheufele speaks to Torri Mundell about the Swiss company’s new Magical Setting range, aimed at creating a whisper-light collection of jewellery to be worn anywhere, anytime

When Chopard’s artistic director and co-president, Caroline Scheufele, developed an innovative technique to render the setting of gemstones nearly invisible, magnifying their light and lustre, she knew she wanted to apply the technique to everyday pieces as well as show-stopping designs. “I imagined this collection for a chic day-look and easy-to-wear style,” she says. “Chopard pieces are works of art that come to life when they are worn; I want women to feel as free as the light of the diamonds, and to be able to wear their jewellery with an evening dress as well as with a pair of denim jeans!”

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The custom of saving something for best may have fallen out of favour and after several months of lockdown and the tedium of staycations and leisurewear, it holds even less appeal. Created around traditional clusters of diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds with a modern, ‘barely there’ setting, Magical Setting necklaces, bracelets, earrings and rings add a dash of sparkle to the most ordinary of days.

Read more: Halloween thrills on the slopes in Andermatt

Scheufele knows that versatile design is the key to conceiving fine jewellery that can be worn every day. She even designed pieces such as earrings that convert from “long earrings for special occasions” to “stud-like cluster earrings for a more day-to-day basis”. She also advises her clients to follow their instincts when it comes to choosing jewellery that will stand the test of time. “Some women are ‘emerald people’ while others are ‘exclusively diamonds’,” she says. “When I am with a client buying a piece, I want to make sure the jewellery she is buying is true to her, that she can see herself wearing it tomorrow, as well as in 10 years, for any kind of occasion.”

View the collection: chopard.com

This article originally appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2020/2021 Issue. 

The latest in a series of chronograph collaborations between Bucherer and Panerai pays tribute to its namesake colour in more subtle ways than its aquatic palette, says Chloe Frost-Smith

In the past the BLUE collection has included partnerships between Bucherer and the likes of Piaget, Chopard, and TAG Heuer, but this latest collaboration with Panerai takes a more laid-back approach to the luxury timepiece.

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Originally created for the Italian navy’s submariners, the reinterpreted Panerai Luminor Marina Bucherer BLUE retains the oceanic origins of its Panerai predecessors in the model’s more traditional Italian design elements, alongside contemporary updates including an anthracite denim strap with beige stitching which gives the watch a more relaxed look and feel.

More modern still is the matte blue sandwich dial with vertical satin stripes enclosed within a DLC-coated titanium case, a combination which is unique to the model and a first for Bucherer. A handy strap-changing tool is also included for versatility.

For more information visit: bucherer.com

The Mille Miglia is one of the world’s most prestigious motor-racing events. Founded in 1927 as a speed race, today it sees classic-car lovers from all over the world congregate in the northern Italian town of Brescia for a regularity race to Rome and back, taking them through some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world. As it celebrates over a century of racing, the Mille Miglia is going from strength to strength – most recently by welcoming a new major sponsor in the form of Deutsche Bank Wealth Management. Ahead of this year’s edition, Anna Wallace-Thompson speaks to Chopard co-president and regular participant Karl-Friedrich Scheufele about Chopard’s three decade-long partnership with the event

It’s a balmy spring day in May, the kind where it’s warm in the sun and cool in the shade. We’re in the north of Italy, and hundreds of thousands of people are milling around in narrow, medieval streets, congregating around classic cars in bright racing colours of red, yellow, blue, silver and dark green. Cars are parked side by side in piazzas, or nose to tail in between buildings, wherever there is space. Suddenly, amongst the all-pervasive rattling and purring of some 400 engines, a sonic boom marks the whirring, whining rush of fighter jets soaring overhead, trailing streams of red, white and green smoke. It’s a heady mix.

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This is the starting day of the Mille Miglia, the world’s most celebrated classic car regularity race. Every year, it starts in Brescia and attracts car lovers and celebrities alike. Participants have included Rowan Atkinson, Jay Leno, Jeremy Irons, the ‘Flying Finn’ and F1 legend Mika Häkkinen, and, back in its earlier days, legends such as Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss. Originally an open-road endurance race looping from Brescia to Rome and back again, it was established by two young counts (as all such events deserve to be), Aymo Maggi and Franco Mazzotti. Together with sports manager Renzo Castagneto and the motoring journalist Giovanni Canestrini, they envisaged the Mille Miglia as Brescia’s answer to the Italian Grand Prix (purloined after just one year from Brescia in 1922 and moved to Monza, which remains its home today).

The original Mille Miglia (literally ‘a thousand miles’) was founded in 1927 and named after the Roman mile (not the American imperial system, as Mussolini suspected, or, at least, so the story goes) and ran in fits and starts until 1957. It was paused after a fatal crash in 1937, and again during the second world war, before a second fatal crash in 1957 saw it permanently closed. This was not, however, before Moss made racing history in 1955 when he not only left Fangio in second place to win the Mille Miglia, but beat the Italian by a staggering 30 minutes, becoming the first British driver in the event’s history to win. The secret to his still unbroken record of 10 hours, 7 minutes and 48 seconds (that translates to an average of 98.53 mph) lay in the detailed track notes he and co-driver Denis Jenkinson devised – common practice today, but not so much in the mid 50s.

Read more: Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar discusses Iranian art at artmonte-carlo

Fast forward two decades, and the race was revived in its current form in 1977 as a regularity race around an annually changing route through some of Italy’s most beautiful landscapes. Racers no longer hurtle through the Italian countryside at breakneck speed. The challenge now is no longer on who can reach the finishing line first, but in the maintenance, precision and control of handling vintage cars that took part in the original races.

Another challenge is being allowed to take part. The Mille Miglia is one of the world’s most exclusive races and entry is either by invitation, or through a stringent application process where entry per car (yes, per car) is €7,000 (plus VAT) and dependent on a complex array of certification and documentation.

Participants should also have very good insurance. As any classic car collector will know, the combined total worth of the cars here soars into the hundreds of millions. While some are valued in the (relatively modest) hundreds of thousands, the upper end can be eye-watering. To give an idea, the 2016 Artcurial hammer price for the 1957 Ferrari 315 S that came second place in that year’s Mille Miglia was a cool US$35.7 million. Fangio’s 1956 Ferrari 290 MM, meanwhile, is valued at US$28 million. But this is the price one pays for being a part of history.

“We are dealing with the culture of the automobile, of course, but also the culture of an incredible country,” notes Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, co-president of Chopard, which is celebrating 30 years of partnership with Mille Miglia (manifested through sponsorship as well as an annual special edition watch). “I think the most beautiful landscape is in Tuscany,” he continues. “There are hills you have to go up and down, which is a challenge, and the views are breathtaking. There are times I have to remind myself that I must concentrate on the driving. It is such a privilege to drive through places like Siena, to find yourself crossing the Piazza del Campo – well, it’s like entering a live museum. The Mille Miglia takes you to historic places one might never otherwise visit.”

This is no exaggeration, for the Mille Miglia is indeed like a living, breathing open-air museum. The oldest cars taking part are more than 90 years old – this year’s race included an OM 665 S Superba 2000, a Bugatti T 35 Grand Prix and a Bentley 3 Litre, all from 1925, as well as a quirky torpedo-shaped Amilcar CGSS Siluro Corsa from 1926 (complete with leather strap to hold the bonnet shut).

Read more: Knight Frank’s Chairman Alistair Elliott on research and tech

That leather strap is indicative of the attention to detail the Mille Miglia fosters. The joy participants take is evident not just in the pristine condition of the cars themselves (often referred to as “better than new”), but in the smallest of details – from old-fashioned racing goggles and leather caps down to vintage suitcases placed in luggage racks. However, to label the Mille Miglia quaint would be misleading – these are serious car and racing aficionados and the appreciation for what goes on under the hood is just as important as the beautiful paint jobs that keep the cars gleaming.

Scheufele himself has taken part in the race 28 times in the 30 years that Chopard has been official partner and timekeeper. “What really caught my attention was the immense enthusiasm that the spectators and general public had for this event, and for the participants,” he says. “Back then, of course, the whole event was much smaller – but you could already sense that it was on the way to becoming something much larger and more international.” With this in mind, Scheufele set about convincing his father, Chopard owner Karl Scheufele, of the merits of sponsoring the event. His efforts were successful, and in 1988, Chopard came on board as historical partner and official timekeeper. And the rest, as they say, is history.

To watch the race get underway in Brescia’s Viale Venezia is to experience intense exhilaration. The anticipation in the air is palpable; it creates a rush of adrenalin that is contagious. One could argue any racing event would have a similar effect, but with the Mille Miglia, it is the added sense that one is taking part, somehow, in history, as past and present collide. The parade of cars is a colourful spectacle, of Ford Thunderbirds and other models long since relegated to the annals of history – cars by makers such as Austin-Healey, OM, Lancia, BNC, Riley, Siata and Sunbeam roll on by, alongside grand tourers by the likes of Maserati, Fiat, Renault, Saab, BMW, Alfa Romeo, and Jaguar. There’s even a Triumph TR3.

Scheufele himself has been driving a 1957 silver Porsche 550 Spyder A/1500 RS in recent years, with his regular navigator, none other than ‘Monsieur Le Mans’, the racing great, Belgian Jacky Ickx (this year followed closely in the lineup by German sports car racer Timo Bernhard and Hollywood actor-turned-artist Adrien Brody in a 1955 Porsche 356 1500). “That Porsche Spyder is not just an icon, I love to drive it,” says Scheufele. “It’s light, and nimble, it’s just a delight to drive.”

And delight is precisely the concept of this race. It has made the Mille Miglia such an enduring and significant event on the international racing calendar. As any classic car aficionado will tell you, the joy is in the handling of a purely mechanical engine, an analogue driving experience with electronics, no power steering, no ABS brakes (in fact, barely any brakes at all in the modern sense of the word), no traction control to help you out if you get a corner wrong, and in the pure physicality of driving in an age of ever-increasing automation. It is also quite something to see these cars out and ‘alive’, and not as static museum exhibits. “The experience here is a tangible one,” says Scheufele. “You can open the hood of these cars and understand what’s going on. In a modern car, often you simply have no idea, everything is managed by electronic equipment. I think the classic car is one of the last areas in which you can actually experience an element of freedom in taking it out on the road.” Imagine the sight of a gorgeous two-tone 1931 Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 GS Aprile, a bright green supercharged MG C-Type from 1932 or a 1954 lemon-yellow Lincoln Capri (although the most popular car by far is the mid-1950s Mercedes-Benz 300 SL ‘Gullwing’ Coupé, of Stirling Moss fame).

Read more: A journey to the Kimberley with Geoffrey Kent

Nobody seems to consider that the Mille Miglia could result in damage to some very expensive vintage machinery. “Back when the first enthusiasts came to the Mille Miglia, I don’t think they were really considering their cars as investments,” says Scheufele. “Even today, I personally consider my cars to be firstly objects for my passion, and then on a secondary level I think, OK, they have increased in value, but I would never buy a car for that reason alone, just as I would never buy a painting for that reason – but some people do!”

Looking to the future, however, Scheufele is keen to maintain quality over ambitious expansion plans. “Now, I think the challenge for the Mille Miglia is to maintain this standard, and in one sense, not to grow any further,” muses Scheufele. “There are many logistical challenges to getting this caravan around Italy while offering every participant a reasonable level of quality, and I think that can only be achieved by tightly reviewing the number of participants that take part.”

So, let’s go back to that balmy spring day. As the sun sets and the last of the cars have set off, the heavens open and rain pelts down on the Lombardy landscape. Those of us warm and safe indoors spare a thought for the many open-top cars and the drivers who are currently getting soaked – although for them, it’s all part of the authenticity of the experience. But when the next morning dawns warm and dry, and the sun shines over Italy and the wind is in your hair and your engine is purring, could there be anything more glorious?

The 2019 Mille Miglia runs from 15 – 18 May. For more information visit: 1000miglia.it

Caroline Scheufele is co-president of Chopard, the Swiss jeweller and watchmaker that has been run by her family for more than 150 years. As head of the women’s collections and fine-jewellery range, she has made the Cannes Film Festival a dazzling stage for the brand’s showbiz ambassadors to display a new range of bespoke creations every year. Her time running the company has seen the rise of the Chinese market and the emergence of social media. LUX Editor in-Chief Darius Sanai visits her at Chopard’s Geneva HQ to discuss doing business in Beijing, how to keep innovating and how the best ideas come in the rain

LUX: We just looked at the atelier where you create your individual pieces, and what struck me was the creativity and ‘anything goes’ style of these one-offs. Is Chopard becoming more creative or has it always been like this?
Caroline Scheufele: I think Chopard has always been known for being one of the most creative in the watch and jewellery market. But over the years there has been a big evolution – especially over the past 10 years when I started to introduce the Red Carpet collection that we release annually in Cannes. We started with the 60th anniversary, so crazily enough I said we will make 60 special pieces, and every year we add one, so we are now up to 71.

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It’s a big challenge for the workshop. Over the past 10 years there was a big evolution and maybe even revolution within high jewellery because we started to work a lot with titanium and even now ceramic and aluminium, and you get a completely different finishing look than if you only work with gold. Personally, I love to wear big earrings and that’s why we started a lot with titanium because normally big earrings are very heavy because of the gold, and the worst thing is when you sit at a dinner and you see a woman taking off her earrings on the table because they hurt.

That’s also the practical side of it, if you use titanium – like on the big orchids in this year’s collection – they are like feathers. And now we can colour the titanium, which we can’t do with gold. When we started my father said, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘It’s not written anywhere that diamonds have to be set in gold.’ It’s just historically always been done like that.

LUX: You were inspired by your recent travels?
Caroline Scheufele: Yes, I travel a lot. I just came back from two weeks in China which is always very inspiring. And there are a lot of things you can pick up in ancient architecture or colours or music. But there is not a given moment when you say, ‘OK, today I’m going to sit down and be creative.’ It doesn’t happen like that. But it often happens when I travel which is good because I always come home with ideas and you always need new ideas. I love architecture. I think if I would not have been doing what I do with the family I probably would have gone into architecture.

LUX: When you are travelling, do you have to force yourself to go out of the usual itinerary to get to the inspirations?
Caroline Scheufele: I fight with my team because this time, for example, I was two days in Xi’an, an old capital of China where they had the first Emperor, and very close to the Terracotta Warriors. I said, “No matter what, I am going there. Please put these two hours into my programme.” And like always my team say, “Ah no, no but you have to do this…”. I mean, I was in China five times last year and I still haven’t seen the Great Wall.

Read more: Entrepreneur Adrian Cheng & landscape architect James Corner are redesigning Hong Kong

LUX: For the Cannes unique pieces is it really carte blanche? You create whatever you want and clients will buy them?
Caroline Scheufele: It’s pretty much carte blanche. We do have a theme, but otherwise anything goes.

LUX: Do you worry they won’t get sold?
Caroline Scheufele: No… we have a very nice group of clients who are very attached to the brand and they get to see them pre-Cannes. And then we may have other customers who want the pieces but we only make one of each.

LUX: China has gone from zero to biggest market in the world in the past 15 years. How have you established yourselves as the brand with the power that you have over there? Because they didn’t know Chopard previously.
Caroline Scheufele: We started with some agents and now we run China ourselves, we have our own office in Shanghai and another in Beijing and a big one in Hong Kong. First it was more about watches but now the Chinese have discovered branded jewellery. We have our Chinese ambassadresses and when they wear something, the next day it can be sold out. They are very celebrity-driven so it’s a lot about social media. China is also so big. When you go to a city like Beijing, it’s 22 million people, almost three times Switzerland. The dimensions are so different. Last time I met a very nice successful lady, who runs a family business, but they have 320,000 employees – that’s the whole city of Geneva!

LUX: You have to visit China in person, right?
Caroline Scheufele: Yes, they appreciate meeting the family. They like the personal interaction. We had an exhibition at a luxury fair in Hainan, and we printed a book in Chinese. I gave it to a lady and the next morning she knew everything in the book, she had read the whole thing, which probably wouldn’t happen in America.

LUX: Is the perception of luxury changing in China?
Caroline Scheufele: Certain brands were very popular in the beginning when China opened up, and now certain people in the Chinese elite are going for smaller brands because it’s more chic or less widely seen. I met a very interesting professor from Beijing University who was giving some background on China, about how things change quickly. Within the past three years, 100 million people moved from poverty into the middle class but in the next six years it will be 300 million more. They set themselves goals and visions and they really do them.

LUX: Are consumers around the world less loyal to brands and is that a problem?
Caroline Scheufele: It’s not a problem, it’s an opportunity. It’s also stimulating for us to be more innovative and more creative. And fast.

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LUX: Is speed an advantage because you’re a family company?
Caroline Scheufele: It’s an advantage because if something is urgent we can make things quickly because everything is in-house. Also we can stop something and say, ‘Now we make this engagement ring because their engagement is the day after tomorrow.’ Which in other companies is more complex. They have [to get] 10 people’s signatures before they even start the design, and we’ve already made the piece.

LUX: Have tastes changed around the world in the past few years?
Caroline Scheufele: Yes, jewellery has become more democratic in a way, how women wear it. So, mixing colours, mixing shades of gold. With a beautiful diamond ring you can also wear it with jeans, you don’t need to have only the long dress to go with it. So I think yes, it has changed.

LUX: I might have this completely wrong as an outsider, but it seems to me that jewellery used to be made by men and bought by men for women, and you’re a woman and your customers are women.
Caroline Scheufele: Women and men. Both. I sometimes call men and say, ‘Your wife’s birthday is coming up, I hope you didn’t forget it!’ But yes, previously jewellery was always something that you expected to be given as a present. Whereas certain women spend easily, they go shopping for designer clothes and they spend $10,000, $20,000 without a problem, but to buy yourself a beautiful diamond ring was not so much on the menu. I think now a lot of women are independent, they make their own money, they also buy their own jewellery, they might still be married but they sometimes go, ‘Ah, this is new?’ ‘Yes, I just bought it for myself.’ The behaviour of buying has changed, also with the advent of e-commerce.

LUX: Is that going to become more and more important?
Caroline Scheufele: We have to work with both. I still like magazines, I’m not somebody who can read a book on iPhone. I still like the touch of paper, but maybe I’m not this very young generation… I still think there is a difference. A lot of people get information first online and then they go to the destination, physical shopping. So, the digital side is important. How you present your company. I think there will always be stores. But the stores today have to be much more of a lifestyle experience. The people who sell have to be better. It’s not good when the client knows more about diamonds than the salesperson.

LUX: Do clients care about your decision this year to only use Fairmined products?
Caroline Scheufele: I think it definitely appeals a lot to the younger generation because they are much more alert, today, about the planet, about sustainability and responsibility. The other day I had lunch with a friend and the son came in. We were talking about tennis shoes and he said, “Mummy no, no, no, you cannot buy this brand. It’s not good because they use kids.” And the mother said, “Ah.” The little one is six years old. So there is much more information and I think we all have to take care of the planet, we cannot just wait for the next generation to clean up.

LUX: You met the miner who mined the diamond you bought from Botswana, the Kalahari Diamond. Is the female empowerment element important for you?
Caroline Scheufele: It is important. And what was the beauty of the Kalahari is that a woman found it and it was on a Sunday. For me this was a unique experience, because I really followed everything from A to Z – from the mine to the cutting to the design. And then obviously we presented, we made the presentation in Paris and we invited the lady who found the stone to the presentation. And she had never been out of the village, so they had to get passports and visas, and she came with her son and then they went to Versailles. They were there one week, and in Versailles the son said, “Is this ice?” because it was the first time he had seen snow. So that, it was nice, it was actually nice.

LUX: Do you get inspiration for your next ideas in unlikely places?
Caroline Scheufele: Yes, I do. Once, we had rented a boat and we were very unlucky because it basically rained for the whole week, so what do you do? You watch movies, you read, you go and eat, you read more, you listen to music. And I was looking around, thinking, ‘How important the sun is!’ And your mood is down, and that’s when I had the idea of doing the Happy Sun collection. I designed it in the rain.

View Chopard’s collections at: chopard.com

As artistic director and co-president of Chopard, Caroline Scheufele sees it as her duty not only to keep the famed jewellery house’s A-list clientele happy, but also to have a vision of the consumer of the future. She tells LUX why provenance will be everything

The ultimate luxury is when you really know how your product was produced. I met Livia Firth (Colin Firth’s wife) in Los Angeles, where she was representing Eco-Age, and she asked me, ‘Where do you get your gold from?’ I said, ‘from the bank’, but the minute I answered, I knew what she was really getting at and I admitted that we don’t really know where the banks get the gold from. It is obviously from mines, but the set-up is not at all transparent or regulated, and it made me think.

We started working with the Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM), who certified the first mine in Colombia as fair-mined – not fair trade, there’s a big difference. From A to Z the process is transparent; there are no kids working; the workers have a fixed salary; they have insurance. The mine is secure, and although they are still using mercury, they are doing so in very small volumes, always following the guidance set out in the fair-mined standard, which ensures that they’re not putting it in rivers or the earth when separating the gold from the stones, which is the most important issue. As a result, the village where the mine is located is clean for people to live in. It’s a really beautiful project. Recently, a second mine has been certified in Bolivia and there will be another one in Colombia, so things are moving forward. For three years now Chopard has been engaged in what we call ‘the journey’ to reaching our ultimate aim of using only fair-mined gold, but it’s not something you can accomplish in one day.

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Clients like the story behind the gold. The first piece that we were able to produce was a cuff worn by Marion Cotillard on the red carpet in Cannes, and immediately it was a tremendous success with the media and clients. We sold it the next day. Of course, it is also a beautiful design – that has to come with it. We then made additional pieces, one of which was worn by Cate Blanchett when she won the Golden Globe for Blue Jasmine in 2014, and my brother has recently unveiled the first fair-mined gold mechanical watches. The whole company is behind the project and has to be because we cannot mix fair-mined gold with the other gold – I like to say it goes through the company like a VIP customer.

The younger generation, in particular, seems to be more sensitive to where their products come from. It’s the same as food – when you buy a piece of beef you want to know that it’s really a piece of beef and nothing else. You want to know the whole story. This is a huge problem in fashion, of course, because workers are dying just so that a T-shirt costs five cents less. Fortunately, being more alert and aware of the planet, nature and saving energy seems to be on trend now – or, as we say in French, du temps.

Jewellery in general has become more democratic in the way you wear it and the way you mix colours and stones. Even men are wearing more jewellery now. The influence of social media definitely has a part to play in this – fashion bloggers and faster ways to communicate make it more of a movement. We’ve brought a lot of colour, for example, into the boutique collections like Happy Hearts, and there are lots of different shades and semi-precious stones set together. I think a lot of women like to have something colourful and light. It is so much more liberated than it used to be.

That said, at the highest price level I think people are still looking for something purer. The diamond will always be at the core. The high-end jewellery market is less affected by social media trends in that way. It is more intimate, people want to go into the store and see the quality. Whereas at the lower level, lots of pieces are now getting sold through online boutiques. For real luxury, people still like to get a physical feeling of the brand and be consulted, but when you’re living in a city where you don’t have a boutique and you want to buy a present, for example, that’s when online shopping becomes really useful and practical. Take China: the cities are so huge and there’s so much traffic that online boutiques save a lot of time. Also, people often go to the internet to get information first, visiting different websites of different luxury brands before they choose where they really want to go in person. We’ve got an online boutique in the US now and have just started one in the UK.

We are moving forward as fast as we can. My aim is ultimately to produce all the high jewellery pieces with fair-mined gold, and my brother wants to do the same with all the Luke Chopard watches. The ultimate goal would be for everything to be fair-mined gold.

chopard.com