In August 2022, Parley for the Oceans and the Government of Andhra Pradesh celebrated the official launch of Parley India with one of the largest coastline cleanups in the world, spanning 28km of shoreline, 14 beaches and eight fishing villages

Cyrill Gutsch is the founder and driving force behind Parley for the Oceans, an organisation dedicated to protecting the oceans through underutilised avenues such as art, design, fashion and collaboration. He speaks to Trudy Ross about the material revolution, the pivotal role of artists in inspiring change, and the unique approach of partnering with big corporations for a sustainable future

LUX: What is the Parley for the Oceans movement?
Cyrill Gutsch: The core of what we are striving to do is to bring about a ‘material revolution’. We want exploitative and harmful materials and business practices to become a thing of the past. When you look at all of the environmental issues we face today, it always comes back to the way that we run businesses, which is based on an old belief that we can only survive if we are strong and even cruel. It is a very masculine, and outdated, idea of how to run society.

We must switch our model towards true collaboration, between humans and also with nature, instead of taking and taking, and then discarding what we no longer like.

LUX: Why are artists and art so central to your vision of sustainability?
CG: I believe that the artist, in every revolution, has a big role to play. Artists are in a unique position; people come to them, without any predefined expectation, ready to be provoked and to learn. They are also special people, in that they don’t have a hidden agenda, and they are extremely good communicators. Artwork can play an important role in supporting a movement like Parley’s for fundraising, communication, and to build doors to subject matters which can otherwise be difficult for people to understand.

Sculplture from Underwater Pavilions, an installation by artist Doug Aitken, produced by Parley for the Oceans and presented in partnership with The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA)

A good artist can have the impact on people that schools, conferences, and news articles can’t have. They have a superpower – they get close to people’s hearts. They open people up to new values.

At Parley, artists have a convening role. When Julian Schnabel collaborated with Parley for the Oceans in 2019, a diverse audience of politicians, wealthy individuals, collectors, other artists, people from the entertainment industry and entrepreneurs showed up in New York to discuss a topic which was new and challenging for most of the people in the room. The art community is the home for the Parley movement.

LUX: Repositioning artists in the centre of the climate change cause is quite radical. What would you say to people who would argue that, to make real change, you have to look to science, facts and hard policy?
CG: Artists have the perfect vantage point: they cannot be bound by conventional limitations, and therefore they can redefine reality. Unlike other groups, they can do this in a way which does not put themselves in danger. It is so easy for an artist to call for a revolution. First, you create a space for the protection of revolutionary ideas. Science and policy come second. If you don’t begin by gaining support of the right people, then you cannot succeed – even with the right tools in hand.

At Parley, we cannot tell governments to implement new, sustainable economic models. Rather, we collaborate with them. Once we see true intention from them to do better, we can work with them on policy and incentive programmes for industries. Ultimately, however, it comes down to the people who own businesses. If company shareholders make the choice to ditch the use of fossil fuels, plastics, and exploitative and harmful business matter, then it will happen.

The Ocean Uprise Internship Program gives young people from around the world opportunity to learn from ocean experts, take part in skill-based workshops, and implement a local community project

Our audience is a mix of people. First, there are wealthy people who often do not know how unsustainable the companies they invest in are, or how they could invest better. Second, there are the corporations themselves, who are under pressure to deliver the numbers. They cannot take risks. Now they are finally being challenged by legislators to change their business model, but this is still not quick enough, and there is still not enough pressure from the government. The government could change climate change overnight. It is a complex riddle.

The way that we believe that you can create radical change is through a combination of new ideas, access to knowledge, and eco-innovation. This technological innovation is made up of two things – the first being natural, or bio-fabricated materials, the second being green chemistry. We can easily revolutionise our industries with a bit of willingness, understanding, strategy and investment into new technology. All of that is driven by imagination. The moment that we want to do something – and radically believe in it – then we have the skill to make it happen. That is the beauty and the danger of our species.

LUX: How do you approach forming relationships with bigger, for-profit organisations while standing by your values as an NGO committed to protecting the planet?
CG: The environmental issues we are facing today are caused by corporations. That is it. You can protest and not buy their products, but this is difficult. We depend on the products that they make – but we know that they are destroying our planet. But at Parley, we have a more innovative approach: if we come to one company, then we can make a much larger change.

Parley for the Oceans is working with Christo and Jeanne-Claude to rework the fabric from their public artwork L’Arc de Triomphe

LUX: You have partnered with many iconic brands. Which collaboration are you most proud of?
CG: I want to speak about Dior. As part of the LVMH group, they are a representation of an old economy. Sustainable change is a big challenge for them. It is difficult for such established companies to innovate, to find alternatives to leather and fur, to plastic, to dyes and prints.

But Dior allowed us to help them. Making the yarn and fabric, and recycled materials, was a long but rewarding process. Eventually they saw that it was great. Now they’re saying “What can we do with leather? How can we replace plastic? How can we use 100% natural materials?” We must be willing to invest. It might take two years for material made from banana leaves in the Philippines to get to the level where it can become part of a collection.
We need commitment – like Dior had – from big brands.

LUX: Do you think that this time and economic investment is the future of the luxury industry?
CG: Yes. And Parley is giving the luxury industry the laboratory for that, changing material use and educating on innovative methods. And we must revamp the whole supply chain and lifecycle of a product. We must look at unsustainable agriculture. Fertilisers and pesticides destroy the nutrition value of the soil; pesticides run through waterways to the sea. There are huge dead zones in the ocean because fertilisers and pesticides have destroyed everything. Yet there are beautiful alternatives in farming. Every detail counts.

Parley Ocean School youth programs are made in collaboration with with local schools, NGOs and governments around the world

LUX: How do you imagine that our oceans will look in 10 years’ time?
CG: Ten years is long and short. On one hand, it is long: if we stalled human activity, I have no doubt that the oceans would be fully recovered in ten years. Extinct species would not return, but other species would evolve. Unfortunately, we are not doing that, and the speed of changing the market and the way we are working is much slower.

On the other hand, in transforming the economy, ten years is a blink of an eye. The only way to drive change in a ten year window is to aggressively address the issues we face. That means the intersection of carbon dioxide, methane gas, stopping plastic pollution, or at least cutting it down at scale. And then, 25 years down the road, we will have eradicated most of the toxic materials we are using.

Humans are very good under pressure. When humans understand that they are threatened, they will aggressively transform. And I believe that humans are ready for peace. There is a desire in us now to drive this revolution.

Find out more: parley.tv

Adrian Bridge, opened Porto’s Cultural District, WOW, in 2020

Starting his career in the British Cavalry Regiment, Adrian Bridge moved to Portugal in 1994 and is now CEO of The Fladgate Partnership, which produces Taylor, Fonseca, Fonseca-Guimaraens, and Croft Ports. Here, Bridge speaks to LUX’s Leaders and Philanthropists Editor, Samantha Welsh about being a driving force behind wine tourism in Porto and developing the city’s new Cultural District WOW

Adrian Bridge

LUX: What do you think your training at Sandhurst taught you?
Adrian Bridge: The military teaches a great deal about leadership and confidence. You also learn to make decisions based on the available information, no matter how imperfect. However, in planning action it is in the details where success lies. That requires breaking down a problem to its parts and thinking through all of the details. I believe that all business is about the detail and that is where success lies.

LUX: How would you say this has influenced your dynamic style of leadership?
AB: The moto of Sandhurst is ‘Serve to Lead’ and I strongly believe in leading from the front. This creates a company culture where everything should be possible. I do not ask people to do things that I would not do myself. I think that this allows us to push forward, to take risks, to do things that others might not attempt.

Angel’s Share is the name given for evaporation process that takes place when wine is ageing in barrels. It is also the name of the WOW wine bar

LUX: Why is the house so good at innovating?
AB: To me, innovation is all about pushing boundaries. To remain at the top, you simply can’t sit still. You have to continuously question, push and evolve or someone will overtake you.

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Established in 1692, we are one of the oldest companies in the world simply because we don’t sit still. We are continuously expanding and innovating to appeal to both new and existing audiences. We have a reputation for quality and excellence that has been built up over time and continues to be sustained through the generations.

One of our best examples of innovation has to be the creation of Croft Pink; the first ever Rosé Port. We launched this product in 2008 with the goal to introduce Port wine to a younger generation. In 2011 we continued to expand this concept and launched a canned “ready to drink”- Rosé tonic.

The Fladgate Partnership produces Taylor, Fonseca, Fonseca-Guimaraens, and Croft Ports

LUX: Oporto is already a UNESCO World Heritage City, so what was your vision for WOW?
AB: Porto is a beautiful city full of history, charm and culture – all of great significance to Portugal’s identity. The vision of WOW was to bring a totally new set of cultural concepts to Porto and in this way offer quality content to the region.

We wanted this to be a game-changing space for both locals and travellers that really celebrates the culture, gastronomy, history and industries of Portugal. WOW is as educational as it is fun. To achieve this, we needed to make sure this was a dynamic district that featured regular exhibitions, unique events and seasonal experiences.

The District is over 55,000sqm and includes 8 museums and experiences and 11 restaurants and bars

LUX: What does an immersive experience offer that can complement the traditional vineyard visit?
AB: One of the reasons WOW originally came to be was in response to the booming number of visitors coming to Porto – demand that we helped to create by building The Yeatman – and the lack of experiences that Porto had to offer. To appeal to this market, we continuously try to ensure that there is something new for people to do and see in the district. Technology really allows us to engage with guests in a more interesting and meaningful way.

After the traditional vineyard visit, I would definitely suggest spending a day at WOW. It’s a good idea to choose one or two museums, do a workshop at The Wine School or at The Chocolate Story – the chocolate museum, enjoy a typical dish in one of our restaurants, appreciate the sunset in our Angel’s Share bar while drinking a Port Tonic and stay to be amused by the video mapping in our main square.

The Chocolate Story Museum

LUX: What is a sustainable vineyard model and how are you working to secure the future of viticulture?
AB: We are committed to protecting the environment and the future of our vineyards and the Douro Valley where our family has produced Port wine for centuries.

Our sustainable model incorporates a number of techniques and strategies which work together to create a balanced, diversified and sustainable vineyard environment. The basis of the model is the construction of narrow terraces each of which supports only one row of vines.

The view from Angel Share’s Wine Bar

This model was awarded the prestigious BES Biodiversity Prize in 2009, which recognises achievement in the fields of conservation and environmental sustainability.

In order to encourage industry change on a global level we established the Porto Protocol – the wine industry’s climate action network. Since our first summit in 2018, we have brought together more than 230 wine and wine adjacent companies from 22 countries to share solutions to combat climate change in the wine industry.

LUX: This year you have opened a new museum with a ground-breaking exhibition from TATE at the Atkinson Museum, what was the strategy behind that?
AB: The vision of WOW is to bring a totally new set of cultural concepts to Porto. The new exhibitions, especially the Atkinson Museum, reinforce this destination as a “must visit” hub for international travellers.

At the centre of WOW is the Atkinson Museum. Originally built in 1760, we have meticulously restored and modernised the space to meet international museum standards and attract exhibitions from the international art pool.

Adrian Bridge has a private collection of 2,000 vessels and glasses which tell the story of  the evolution of drinking vessels from earliest civilisations to the present day with some of the collection dates back to 7,000BC

Our most recent exhibition, The Dynamic Eye was produced by the TATE Collection and featured over 100 works from 63 artists – this was the largest number of works travelling from TATE to Portugal. This is an amazing example of the quality of major exhibitions we are bringing to Gaia.

The idea is to bring new and different major international exhibitions, such as The Dynamic Eye, every year.

Read more: Italy Art Focus: Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo

LUX: How can cultural philanthropy shine a light on the house values?
AB: As a family business, we are built on a set of strong shared values. We are continuously seeking opportunities that align with our core values. At the moment, one of my key priorities is sustainability in the wine industry and coming up with new ways to create new industry practices.

Porto Region Across the Ages Museum

LUX: What would you like to be remembered for?
AB: When I came to live in Porto in 1994, I came to into a Port Wine Trade that was very traditional. Our company helped to consolidate that industry and lead it forward, not least with the innovation of various new styles of Porto. This was an achievement and in doing this I hope that I will be remembered for helping to enhance one of the greatest wines and wine regions in the world. This also includes putting Porto on the map as a destination and through that work we have helped to stimulate the development of the town and create jobs and wealth. However, I will probably just be remembered for altering the city centre through the construction of The Yeatman and WOW.

Find out more: fladgatepartnership.com

Photo by Andrea Leopardi

Can creating new products be sustainable? Franco Fogliato speaks to LUX about Salomon’s sustainability efforts and how he believes consuming differently can be more important than consuming less

LUX: When did Salomon start focusing on environmental responsibility?
Franco Fogliato: Nature is our backyard. We live in the mountains, we are mountain people. Every time we do something we are trying to be less impactful on nature. Fifteen years ago, we began looking for new technologies, new developments and ways to create positive impact in the way we do things. It has gone from creating shoes that are 100% recyclable, to being the first company in France to make its shoes in our home country, minimising the carbon footprint associated with shipping from factories overseas. These are all initiatives that started ten or fifteen years ago, which have been accelerating ever since.

LUX: How is sustainability at Salomon influenced by its athletes and employees?
FF: We are a company that is led by our athletes. Our athletes are at the forefront of our industry. They push the boundaries of what we do every day to ensure not only that we are the highest performers, but also the most sustainable.

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We also have a generation of employees that are younger, who are in their late twenties and early thirties, and have grown up with sustainability as a daily topic. Sustainability is part of what our teammates want and what they love. Every time they think about a new product, they first think about how they are going to create it without impacting the world and the planet.

Photo by Kaidi Guo

LUX: How do you approach innovation and sustainability together, ensuring that product development aligns with the brand’s commitment to minimising environmental impact?
FF: It’s a tough conversation. Do you choose the most performant product, which is not sustainable, or do you choose the product which is sustainable but less performant? There are examples every day: we had great shoes which had a great insole, but the insole was unsustainable. We changed the insole with a sustainable insole but which was less resistant, and consumers were not happy. The constant push that comes from athletes and the consumer comes back to our factories and our teams to come out with new technology, that pushes us to the next level.

LUX: Because of your company’s heritage and long-standing reputation in the outdoor industry, do you feel like you have more responsibility than others to be initiating this fight against climate change?
FF: We have to be leaders, it’s not a choice. It’s also what we like to do. It’s pushing the boundaries, in sport and building new products which are more sustainable. Sometimes people use the challenges we face just to make noise, rather than focusing on the actions that are needed. Sometimes my teammates ask me, how we’re going to build the company; people will need to consume less, they say. I say, if you think people will consume less, you are mistaken. There will be new technologies which are a lot less impactful than the way they are today.

LUX: Does creating new products contradict your aim to be environmentally friendly?
FF: I think there is a challenge still on the consumer side where there is a little bit of confusion around what is and is not sustainable. I think people see consuming less as the major driver behind minimising climate change, but in fact the driver is not consuming less but consuming differently.

Photo by Kalen Emsley

The carbon footprint impact of producing a pair of shoes is equal to driving a car for thirty miles. I have a theory that people should stop using cars and just run. I tell my people that they should stop using their cars to come to work and just run here. Why do you need a car? The human being was built on running. I think really activating a different consumption and pushing people outside is really what we want to do. We have a challenge with sustainability, but we also have a challenge in the evolution of the population globally with the digital. We have to take care of how people will evolve.

Read more: Rapha CEO Francois Convercey on diversity and sustainability in cycling

LUX: What are some of the initiatives at Salomon which have made the biggest difference towards sustainability?
FF: The biggest impact on producing a product is transportation, so there is an opportunity going forward in the evolution of the sourcing base, to source closer to the consumer. Many brands have tried that in the past and failed. Lately we had the French President, who had recognised our efforts, visiting our shoe factory in France. That factory would never have been born without us sharing our talents and skills with the local entrepreneurs. No one knows how to build shoes in France any more, as the entire production of shoes has shifted to Asia or Eastern Europe. These are the efforts which have made us recognised by the press and by the media.

LUX: What set Salomon apart from other outdoor gear brands which are also focusing on the sustainability mission?
FF: We like to think this is not a battle for who does the most. The battle is not between companies, it’s much bigger. We have to be ourselves. We have the first fully recyclable shoes; we were the first to do that in the marketplace a couple of years ago. But if someone comes in and is better than us, great! We’ve got to learn to do better, to improve. This is a battle we all fight together. I don’t have a problem with sharing technologies or doing anything which will help make the world into a better place. For once, it’s a competitive environment where there is a team. We are competing all together to make the planet into a better place.

Find out more: salomon.com

CEO Guido Terreni. Courtesy of Parmigiani Fleurier

LUX speaks to Guido Terreni, CEO of Swiss Watchmaker Parmigiani Fleurier about the definition of luxury and the key values which distinguish the classic brand

LUX: What drew you to the world of horology and made you pursue a career in this industry?
Guido Terreni: My girlfriend was living in Switzerland. I decided to join her, and later she became my wife. At that time, I didn’t imagine that I was also getting married to watchmaking.

LUX: What are the core values of the Parmigiani Fleurier brand, and do you believe these have changed over time?
GT: Parmigiani Fleurier is founded on 2 very important values that are embodied in its founder, Michel Parmigiani, who is a living legend of restoration.

The first is a deep cultural knowledge of watchmaking history, and with it, its different crafts across all eras and all components. The second is discretion, because when you are a restorer, even with the highest of skills like Michel, your ego has to disappear. This is because your work is about giving a second life to the work of another creator.

These values are eternal, and our responsibility is to keep them at the heart of our Maison for the pleasure of our clients.

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LUX: In the two years since you were appointed CEO, sales at Parmigiani Fleurier have seen dramatic improvement. What is your business strategy and why has it been so successful?
GT: Indeed, we are experiencing a fantastic momentum that originated from the unveiling of the Tonda PF Collection at the end of 2021. The centre of the strategy is designing a pure and contemporary collection that respects the brand’s values of high horological content and understatement, to please the refined and non-ostentatious watch purists of tomorrow. Everything else, meaning distribution and communication, must be consistent with this desire, where quality over quantity is always respected.

Parmigiani Fleurier’s founder Michel Parmigiani in the restoration workshop. Courtesy of Parmigiani Fleurier

LUX: Your recently released Calendar Watches Trilogy reflects a number of different civilizations and cultures. Can you tell us about the importance of global or cultural approaches to watchmaking?
GT: Global and cultural approaches are part of the same game. The brand is always consistent when it expresses its creativity, whether to the world, or to a specific audience. Authenticity, deepness of the idea and excellence in the execution must always be there. When you address a different culture, what is deeper than interpreting a different way of mastering time?

It is not a commercial exercise. It is a cultural one, that starts from respect, understanding others and putting the Swiss watchmaking culture at the service of another one, while keeping the Parmigiani touch in doing so.

LUX: How can watches tell the stories of people?
GT: A timepiece is probably the most intimate object we accompany ourselves with. Apart from collectors that evidently have a watch for every occasion and every mood, the majority of watch lovers wear their watches for quite a long and continuous time. It is the only object you don’t think about when you choose your outfit in the morning. It is therefore always right for the owner, because it reflects his or her personality. That’s why you can tell a lot of things from how a watch is worn.

The Parmigiani Fleurier Manufacture. Courtesy of Parmigiani Fleurier

LUX: How do you balance honouring the history of traditional watchmaking techniques while also looking to the future and continuing to innovate?
GT: Personally, I value tradition as our roots. They forge your thinking and your craft, but if tradition becomes an obsession, it becomes a cage, a rail from which there is no escape or evolution.

Luxury, to me, is about evolving excellence. Innovation might not be technological, as the quartz watches, or more recently, the smartwatches have demonstrated in failing to supersede the traditional mechanical technology. You can innovate while respecting tradition. You can refuse to accept that everything has already been invented in watchmaking. That, to me, is interesting and creative and pushes our quest to be world premium. Luckily, there is no recipe to express an innovative luxury experience, it’s a question of sensitivity and balance.

LUX: What sets Parmigiani apart from other renowned watch brands, and how do you maintain a competitive edge?
GT: We create discrete high horology, where superior crafts and refinement must respect the non-ostentatious values of our clientele and our Maison. We maintain our competitive edge by aspiring to present innovations that are interesting, and that can become lifelong companions, like the Xiali Calendar, or reinterpreting important functions like the GMT with our GMT Rattrapante, or exploring new functions with the Minute Rattrapante.

LUX: What role does the restoration of watches and other artifacts play in shaping the brand’s philosophy?
GT: To quote Michel: “Restoration is our source of knowledge.” It is important not for the sake of replicating the past, but to acquire and keep alive that sensitivity to the mechanical art that moves us.

The Parmigiani Fleurier Maison. Courtesy of Parmigiani Fleurier

LUX: What are the key challenges facing the luxury watch industry at the moment and how should these be addressed?
GT: The luxury watch industry has become a very big market. The bigger it gets, the more mainstream it becomes. The risk for the industry is to lose contact with the true luxury experience, which has little to do with the size of the budgets at your disposal, but a lot to do with the ideas you have in mind.

Read more: Bovet’s Pascal Raffy on horological artistry and engineering

LUX: Looking to the future, what can we expect from Parmigiani Fleurier as it continues to evolve as a brand?
GT: The Tonda PF has just been born. We have to work with discipline and make the collection become iconic.

We will continue to be true to our values and we will continue to be creative, innovative and assure a supreme execution, while aiming to always being interesting.

Find out more: www.parmigiani.com

Lexus Design Awards 2023 was presented in the Tortona district during Milan Design Week

Against the backdrop of the vibrant and bustling Milan Design Week, Lexus presented the four winners of their coveted annual Design Award, now in its 11th iteration. Trudy Ross visited Milan’s Superstudio Più to find out more

I was an awe-struck first-timer at Salone del Mobile this year, the world’s most prestigious and well-attended design fair. The city was brimming with life, with throngs of fashionably dressed professionals walking over clean, sunbaked streets, the city’s many restaurants and cafes full of old industry friends reuniting and the chatter of business meetings over fine wine. On every corner you were met with an eye-catching new installation, ready to become the venue for yet another glamorous party by the evening.

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The Lexus Design Awards, presented in the Tortona district, was the perfect introduction to Salone, embodying the fair’s guiding principles of creativity, beauty, innovation, sustainability, and a focus on the potential of young designers. The competition was launched in 2013 by Lexus to give a platform to the next generation of designers. Displayed in the bright and airy Superstudio Più, the winning designs were accompanied by architect and artist Suchi Reddy’s immersive 3D collage, Shaped by Air, inspired by the Lexus Electrified Sport.

Reddy told LUX, “It all started from a drawing. I started finding these shapes that were very beautiful – I thought that if Matisse had designed a car, this would be the car…because we were inside, I had the opportunity to really play with reflection, and create this idea of a forest; you can see how the light dapples, creating shadows and unexpected things. There’s a richness to walking in a forest because you never know what shapes to expect – everything fits but it’s always different.”

Suchi Reddy with her installation, ‘Shaped by Air’

Her installation of glass and movement was the perfect intermingling of beauty, technology, and nature to reflect the winning designs, which used technology to look to the future and to create elegance, but also prioritised purpose, practicality and the natural world. While there is usually only one winner, this year the award was expanded to comprise four winners, all of whom were given an opportunity to work with Lexus’ handpicked mentors, four leading figures from the design world: Marjan van Aubel, Joe Doucet, Yuri Suzuki, and Sumayya Vally. A public vote was then held to determine the People’s Choice winner, the design which most impressed and resonated with viewers.

Swedish designer Pavels Hedström was announced as the Your Choice winner for his innovative design, Fog-X, a high-impact hiking jacket that transforms into a tent/shelter – but its real ingenuity is not shapeshifting. The device can catch fog, even in the most arid areas of the desert, and transform it into up to 10 litres a day of drinking water. Hedström told LUX that he has always been interested in solving the big global challenges. When it came to drinking water, he was inspired by plants and animal species which can survive in the Atacama desert. He found that one of the ways they do this is by catching fog, saying his design is “basically the same principle”.

Read more: Photo London’s Fariba Farshad on Fotografìa Maroma

While the jacket itself might not currently be affordable for many of the people living in desert communities with a lack of water, he championed the Fog-X app made alongside the jacket, which anyone can use to determine and track the areas with the most potential for moisture generation. He added, “privileged people like us take for granted that we have water on the tap. We need to rethink how we get these resources, because our relationship to nature is pretty imbalanced. If we use the jacket, I hope it will also change our mindsets and our appreciation of nature.”

Pavels Hedström, the Your Choice winner for his innovative design, Fog-X

The other designers included Temporary Office, a duo made up of Vincent Lai and Douglas Lee, who unveiled 3D topographic puzzle Touch the Valley. Designed with the visually impaired in mind, the puzzle allows people to play and learn through touch rather than sight, with each piece carefully contoured and sculpted to engage tactual sensation. When assembled, the pieces can become a model of a major mountain range or famous landmark. Beyond a tool for the visually impaired, the product can be enjoyed by all and double as an elegant coffee table piece with an interesting story to tell. Perfect for the explorer traveller who doesn’t just want to go to Yosemite, but wants to hold it in his hands.

Vincent Lai and Douglas Lee, founders of Temporary Office

Jiaming Lui from China designed the Print Clay Humidifier, a 3D-printed humidifier made with recycled ceramic waste. This household appliance requires zero electricity or energy and is made from materials left over from industrial processes. Indeed, the product itself can be recycled at the end of its life after any damage or breakages to reform as it was initially. Lui looked to natural resources to replace the plastic, energy-using devices many of us have in our homes and created a stylish, effective and sustainable alternative.

Jiaming Lui with his print clay humidifier design

Finally, and perhaps the most directly relevant to many of our own lives was Kyeongho Park and Yejin Heo’s Zero Bag, a new alternative to plastic packaging for food and clothes, made from seaweed. It looks like plastic, but rather than being an amalgamation of artificial chemicals, it actually fights them. The packaging dissolves in water and contains either a detergent for clothes, or a baking soda film which removes chemicals and pesticides from food. Kyeongho and Yejin, both currently students majoring in industrial design at Hanyang University’s ERICA campus, expressed hope for their idea to expand across regions and become adopted by major retailers.

Kyeongho Park and Yejin Heo with their Zero Bag design

The theme for this year’s competition was ‘Design for a Better Tomorrow’. If these young designers are any indication of what tomorrow might look like, it seems the future will make space for both technology and for nature, cultivating the beauty of both.

Find out more: discoverlexus.com/lexus-design-award-2023

Managing Director of Lateral Naval Architects, James Roy, speaks to Samantha Welsh about innovation and sustainability in the yachting industry

LUX: What made you embark on your career as a naval architect?
James Roy: I grew up in a sailing family, and the sea must have gotten under my skin at an incredibly early age. I remember, aged five, seeing a ship sail past and drawing it; with the clear intent of doing that for a living when I was older. However, the path to success is rarely a straight line, but after some twists and turns I arrived at Southampton Institute in 1992 to study Yacht & Powercraft Design. Having never excelled academically at school I suddenly found myself with a fresh drive and ambition that I had never experienced and graduated top of my year, such is the power of having meaning and passion in one’s work.

LUX: Why did Lateral come about and how do you manage your collaborations?
JR: Lateral is the result of 26 years development. Ultimately, the company is an evolution of the first business that I joined in 1996 (Nigel Gee & Associates). Via evolution of that company, mixed with some acquisition and collaboration, Lateral was brought to life. Reflecting on that path, it has been innovation within an evolving industry that has been a key part of navigating the many possible outcomes that could have come to pass. Whilst the road ahead may be beset with uncertainty it is innovation that often acts as a compass to set direction. When it comes to collaboration, Lateral takes an ‘open-source’ approach. We want to remove any barriers for creativity. Our ethos is that engineering can enable design innovation, and we intend to make that a reality with every project.

LUX: Engineering or architecture, which comes first?
JR: This is a good question, and much like quantum mechanics, both answers can be right and wrong at the same time! There are some projects where the performance specification may be highly demanding, and in such cases an engineering approach may be best suited at the start, and there may be other projects where the functional specification may be leading, in which case architecture takes an initial lead. The reality is that in most projects there is a requirement for both performance and function in some balance. This dictates collaboration from the outset being a key ingredient. Ultimately, collaborating all comes down to people.

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LUX: What is meaningful innovation to you?
JR: Innovation is often confused with invention. To innovate does not mean inventing new things, it means finding solutions to things that did not exist before. Many innovative solutions use existing technologies, but package them in a unique way to solve a particular problem. What I find fascinating is that innovation often leads to improvements to ‘problems’ that no one was aware of, by doing so they improve our lives and experiences. These innovations becoming truly meaningful. To find such innovations is often the result of curiosity; playing with ideas in stolen moments, weaved together by thoughts from diverse projects, often finding something by chance. As Einstein said, ‘creativity is the residue of wasted time.’

Sinot Yacht Architecture & Design, Lateral-Sinot net-zero concept collaboration

LUX: How do you design-in a net zero target?
JR: Net-zero is a straightforward idea but complex in execution. Designing for net-zero is quite simple, we are doing that already by engineering flexible architecture into new superyacht platforms, however they can only achieve net-zero in operation via accountancy. The use of various alternative fuels will still lead to the emission of carbon, for these to be net-zero there must be an accountancy that the carbon emitted has been captured somewhere else. Net-zero is therefore an eco-system spanning many industries, regions, and nations.

LUX: Are superyachts following the motor industry in adopting electrification as a viable alternative to fossil fuel?
JR: Yes, electrification is being embraced but in a different context. Whilst cars are mainly going full electric, yachts are remaining the equivalent of an electric hybrid. This is simply down to the scale of energy needed for a yacht to operate, and the limited storage capacity of batteries. Designs such as Kairos from Oceanco / Pininfarina / Lateral are pushing the boundary and achieving 75% of daily operation on battery. However, we can be sure that battery technology will advance and it is a core part of our future proofing strategy to make batteries part of our energy and propulsion system architecture choices.

LUX: We read about alternatives like liquid hydrogen-based systems, will these become industry-standard in the future?
JR: There are many alternative fuels being explored by the marine industry (and other industries) in the move to decarbonisation and net-zero. Some of these fuels, such as bio diesel, are a simple ‘drop-in’ equivalent for the diesel we already use. Other fuels, such as methanol and liquid hydrogen can make compelling options for future net-zero fuels. However, all of these require more space on board as they have a lower energy density than current fossil fuels. In the future there will be no singular solution, there may be many different future fuels in use. We can be certain that this will be a (welcome) challenge to designers and engineers; we will need to become even more efficient in energy use (so we require less fuel as it uses more volume) and we will also need to offer at least equivalent levels of functionality but in a smaller package. This is the creative challenge we will face in the future; such challenges drive us to innovate.

Read more:Driving Force: Porsche Panamera 4S E-Hybrid

LUX: What do you tell your next gen clients when they are spoiled for choice?
JR: We live in an age of so much choice that it often becomes an enemy to decision making. When I was growing up, we had three TV channels, now we have hundreds but choosing which one to watch is surprisingly quite hard at times! It is a key skill of any leader to be able to guide their clients through the complexities of choice. There are some choices that are complex, technical, rational, and others which are very emotive and personal. Equally there are a multitude that fall in the grey area in between, and guiding clients in these choices without making them feel like they are taking unmanaged risks is key.

Find out more: lateral.engineering

Stanford University has the most funded startup founders among its alumni

Deutsche Bank’s International Private Bank gathered a group of 70 next gens for a Global Innovation Summit  at the heart of technological advancement, Silicon Valley. The group heard from leaders in the tech industry and learnt about the potential of technology like artificial intelligence and machine learning to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems for a better future

Among the plethora of respected speakers at the summit were John Chambers, former executive chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems, Jensen Huang, NVIDIA founder, Nikesh Arora, Chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks, Lloyd Minor, Dean of the Stanford School of Medicine and Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud.

Gil Perez, Deutsche Bank’s Chief Innovation Officer and Thomas Kurian, founder of Google Cloud in conversation at Google HQ

Being at the headquarters of these institutions provided a unique setting enabling participants to witness first hand the advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain and even everyday life.

Salman Mahdi, Deutsche Bank Private Bank’s Vice Chairman and Jensen Huang, Founder of NVIDIA

At Google HQ the group worked on an interactive session with Google’s Innovation team, solving real-world problems. It became abundantly clear how vital their work continues to be. Their goals are not only to solve the world’s problems through technology, but also to search for more problems in order to be able to find solutions before issues arise.

Lloyd Minor, Dean of the Stanford School of Medicine

The breakthroughs in medicine, molecular biology, sustainability and immunology also resonated with the group during a visit to Stanford University.

Salman Mahdi, Deutsche Bank International Private Bank’s Vice Chairman, attended the summit along with the group, having made access to these CEOs, founders and pioneers possible.

He declared, “there is no better place in the world to come to than Silicon Valley to get this window into the future. I hope people will use an opportunity like this to refocus on ten, twenty, fifty years down the line. What we do today will change the world in decades.”

Find out more: www.db.com/innovation-network

Exterior of Pace Gallery in Geneva Gallery. Photograph by Annik Wetter. Courtesy Pace Gallery.

Leading art gallery Pace has long pioneered digital innovations in the art world, and recently announced its first dedicated platform for selling artists’ NFTs. Ahead of the launch in September, LUX speaks to Valentina Volchkova, head of Pace Geneva, about art market trends, collecting habits and Jeff Koons

Valentina Volchkova

1. These days, art collectors can purchase art in various different formats, such as NFTs or tokens, and galleries such as Pace are accepting cryptocurrency as payment. What do you think has brought about these changes?

I look at it as a global subject: life evolves, culture evolves. I joined Pace 12 years ago and I have seen the constant evolution and innovation within the gallery. Marc Glimcher (the gallery’s CEO and president) is very innovative and is always looking for artists and places where people are not expecting to see us. We have, for example, opened a gallery in Palo Alto. In some ways, that decision wasn’t so surprising because there is a pool of collectors and artists who are interested in showing in this corner of the world, but at the same time, we are introducing audiences, from diverse backgrounds, to art that is different to what they’d see somewhere like the Met.

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The pandemic has also changed a lot of the ways in which people consume, interact and get curious about art. It opened up, for us at least, a whole new world and access to artists, to collectors and to press. Before I joined Pace, I opened my own gallery. I was 21 and the gallery was in Paris, in a very conservative place, in Saint Germain, and you would see that people didn’t actually feel comfortable entering the space. Perhaps, it’s because people feel excluded from that environment or think that they have to buy something if they go in. The pandemic, and the forced closure of galleries and different spaces, led to an increased digitalisation not only in terms of art and culture, but also consumerism more generally. Digital platforms provided access to new artists, to new ways of creating art, and to new audiences as well.

We didn’t stop our gallery programme in Geneva because the artists we were showing had other projects planned in another museum or gallery, which meant we had to stick to our schedule. For artists generally, nothing really changed. The majority of them – the painters, the sculptors – were isolated in their studios, and they liked it. They need this kind of isolation, but of course, the frustrating part, for them and us, was not being able to show their work, not being able to install an exhibition and see it live. What happens with the digitalisation of the art is that you don’t have this frustration anymore, it’s accessible to the world. Many artists who had never digitalised their art were suddenly willing to experiment, and for artists who had never shown their work in a gallery, it was an opportunity for them to showcase what they were doing. In that sense, the pandemic opened up a number of opportunities.

Jean-Paul Riopelle, Nouvelles impressions n°15, 1978. © SOCAN, Montreal and DACS, London 2021

2. Do you think these new formats will be maintained in the future?

People are looking for new experiences. They are looking for physical experiences. They have access to so much information and to so many images. Everything is now online: you can go to an exhibition viewing, you can attend a conference all from your computer. I think the digitalisation of our industry was already happening, but the pandemic accelerated it. That doesn’t mean artists will now stop what they had previously been creating, but it means they will also take part in this new, innovative way of creating an artwork. Pace has been involved in these evolutions for a long time with its art and technology programme, with showing digital and immersive art, and I think some artists feel comfortable doing projects with the gallery for that reason.

Lee Ufan, Relatum – expansion place, 2008. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2021 Photo: G.R. Christmas, courtesy Pace Gallery

3. What do you make of Jeff Koons’ recent decision to move to the gallery?

I was actually with Jeff for his show at the Mucem a few weeks ago. He is such a smart and humble person. He knows exactly where he wants to go. There are some artists who have revolutionised the art world and he is part of that group: Cézanne, Duchamp, Rothko, Koons, Picasso. For me, I see it as a very obvious collaboration right now. I think it’s good timing, and this representation comes at a point where the artists are looking for support for their innovative and crazy ideas. Pace is really supportive in that sense.

Read more: A Beginner’s Guide to Collecting Art by Sophie Neuendorf

4. Going back to buying trends, is there a particular artwork or type of art that people are gravitating towards at the moment?

I have made my own observations – in terms of the collectors I’m working with and the shows I put up –  that people are wanting to see and be around art that is reassuring, somehow. Art that deals with current issues, but is also about the environment and brings us closer to nature. Artists are also being rediscovered in those terms and are being shown more than ever. I’m thinking, for example of Kiki Smith, who has done over fourteen shows over the last two years. There is a hunger for art that is accessible and universal, but also established. During the pandemic, people were looking for Rothkos, for Modiglianis, Cy Twomblys and would spend monumental amounts of money for established artworks. The uncertainty of the pandemic meant that we were able to source many of these artworks that we would never manage to source before.

Marina Perez Simão, Untitled, 2021. © Marina Perez Simão. Courtesy Pace Gallery and Mendes Wood DM. Photo by Jonathan Nesteruk

5. Are there any developments, artists or trends that are personally exciting you at the moment?

I am very curious about where we are going right now with the opening of art fairs. I don’t know how they’ll happen, but we’ll see. The pandemic has led us to revisit some of the art movements. Personally, I’m looking to develop the Light and Space movement in a broader way in places where it hasn’t yet been shown. That whole movement is about experience, but is also very universal and accessible. People need that.

6. Now that international travel is opening up, are there any shows you’re looking forward to seeing in Geneva or elsewhere?

I’m excited to see the next step of the Jeff Koons show, which will happen in Florence this fall. The show is very intimate. You might have seen his works at the Centre Pompidou, at the Whitney Museum, at the Fondazione Prada, but the way this show is curated makes you feel very close to the artist and his work. It opens up your eyes to something very sensual, bodily, and attractive.

Pace Geneva’s upcoming exhibition “Silence” runs from 3 September to 30 October 2021. Find out more: pacegallery.com

The new Oyster Perpetual Submariner, 41mm in Oystersteel. © Rolex/Alain Costa

LUX discovers Rolex’s striking new editions to the iconic Submariner, Datejust, Oyster Perpetual and Sky-Dweller collections

The New Submariner

Submariner Date © Rolex/Alain Costa

Rolex’s history with the world of diving dates back to 1926 when the brand invented the now iconic waterproof Oyster case. Following a series of experiments in collaboration with diving pioneers, the brand launched the Submariner in 1953 as the first divers’ wristwatch waterproof to a depth of 100 metres. Since then, the brand’s Submariner collection has gained iconic status with the Oyster case now guaranteeing waterproof to a depth of 300 metres.

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The latest editions to the divers’ collection – the Oyster Perpetual Submariner and Oyster Perpetual Submariner Date – both feature a redesigned, slightly larger case in the classic aesthetic of Oystersteel. Other variations of both watches include a 60-minute graduated Cerachrom insert in coloured ceramic, allowing divers to monitor their dive times.

Oyster Perpetual Datejust 31 in white Rolesor. © Rolex/Alain Costa

The New Datejust

Four new white Rolesor (combining Oystersteel and 18 ct white gold) versions of the Oyster Perpetual Datejust 31 include a diamond-set bezel and aubergine dial with the three other timepieces fitted respectively with a mint green, white lacquer or dark grey dial.

Oyster Perpetual 41 in Oystersteel. © Rolex/Alain Costa

The New Oyster Perpetual

Rolex’s Oyster Perpetual collection features direct descendants of the brand’s original 1926 Oyster waterproof case. The latest model, the Oyster Perpetual 41, is available with a silver or black dial, whilst updates of the Oyster Perpetual 36 feature a range of vibrant lacquer dials in candy pink, turquoise blue, yellow, coral red and green.

Read more: Paris-based artist Cathleen Naundorf on photography, fashion & activism

Both models are equipped with Rolex’s newly launched movement, calibre 3230, which offers gains in terms of precision, power reserve, resistance to shocks and magnetic fields, convenience and reliability.

Oyster Perpetual Sky-Dweller, 42 mm, 18ct yellow gold. © Rolex/Alain Costa

The New Sky-Dweller

The perfect watch for frequent travellers, the Sky-Dweller displays the time in two time zones simultaneously and has an annual calendar. This latest 18ct yellow gold version of the Oyster Perpetual Sky-Dweller is fitted with the brand’s innovative Oysterflex bracelet made of high-performance black elastomer, promising both durability and comfort.

Find out more: rolex.com

Wiltons is one of London’s oldest restaurants, serving high-end British cuisine

Wiltons first opened its doors in Mayfair 1742, offering a menu focused on fresh British produce. Whilst the restaurant remains true to its origins, Head Chef Daniel Kent is set on progressing tradition with a new focus on sustainability. Here, we speak to the chef about his mission to reduce plastic waste, finding ways to innovate and cooking at home

Daniel Kent

1. Did you always dream of becoming a chef and how did your career evolve?

Growing up I had many dreams of what I thought I wanted to do later in life but none of them involved being a chef! It all occurred almost by accident and serendipity took its course. When I left school, I took a job as a pot washer in a local restaurant to earn some pocket money. It was here that the chef asked me if I was interested in being part of the kitchen crew as he thought I might be good at it.

Curious of what this would involve I took him up on his offer and found that I really enjoyed working with food. My parents encouraged me to go to university and study hospitality, so I applied to Manchester University and completed the degree in Hospitality Management.

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Although I had enjoyed working with food so much university was guiding me to an operational role, however the creative aspect of working with food kept calling me and I continued working in kitchens.
Over the years I’ve had the opportunity and privilege to work with several very talented head chefs, all of which have taught me something new and gave me a different perspective. I have used their wise words and knowledge to develop my own management style which I comfortable and happy with.

Some of my mentors have included Rowley Leigh at Kensington Place, Chris Galvin, Jeremy King and Chris Corbin at The Wolseley. Their collective positive influence has assisted me in developing the skills required to run a kitchen in the way that I’ve always desired.

Over the years I have developed a team around me that allows me to coach and mentor new chefs coming into the industry and pass on all the skills I’ve learnt rising up through the ranks. At Wiltons I am exceptionally fortunate to have the incredible opportunity to use the finest, seasonal produce from all over Britain.

Wiltons is known for its oysters and runs monthly oyster masterclasses, designed to teach diners shucking techniques

2. What defines your cooking style?

My true passion is using the very best British products to create dishes that reflect and do justice to their provenance. I would say that I like to develop dishes with modern European cooking techniques, which I can use to great effect with the dishes on our weekly set menus.

While the majority of Wiltons menu does not change, something our guests appreciate and expect we also like to introduce various specials on a daily basis which keep the brigade on their toes and creative. Wiltons is a great British classic and the food we serve needs to reflect this, but by implementing contemporary twists, keeps it relevant.

The menu at Wiltons focuses on seasonal British produce

3. Which is your favourite dish on the Wilton’s menu and why?

Skrei cod, morels and fish veloute is on the menu at the moment and it’s delicious. This cod comes in season at the end of January and we’ve just introduced a wonderful fish dashi consommé. The main course dish we use a fillet of Skrei cod, finished with a classic bonne femme sauce and serve it alongside baby leeks and morel mushrooms. It’s a classic but we’ve collectively adapted it with ideas and techniques we’ve learnt from our travels and working in other restaurants and the guests are thoroughly enjoying it!

Read more: Comme des Garçons protégé Kei Ninomiya’s cult fashion label Noir

4. How are you tackling sustainability issues in the kitchen?

This is a gradual process. Wiltons was the very first restaurant in the UK to join the ‘Chefs Against Plastic Waste Campaign’. All of our chefs’ jackets are made from recycled plastic bottles that have been pulled from the shores of the British Isles. I requested that suppliers use reusable crates to deliver produce and this has been adhered to and we are very mindful of food waste. Bit by bit, we can all do our part. Sustainable practices are key, and we are addressing these.

Wiltons offers a formal dining experience with stately interiors

5. What are your everyday essential ingredients?

Without a doubt, salt and butter! They can change a sauce, elevate a dish and are so basic, yet very versatile!

6. What’s your go to when you want to cook something quick and easy at home?

Chicken schnitzel and cucumber salad. It’s nutritious, quick and delicious and light too! I also enjoy preparing it.

Find out more: wiltons.co.uk

The creations of quintessentially Parisian jewellery maker Chaumet may have been fit for an empress in the late 18th century when the company was founded. But the jeweller aspires to be equally at home with the modern woman around the world. CEO Jean-Marc Mansvelt tells Irene Bellucci how they make the new out of the old

Jean-Marc Mansvelt

“For me, luxury is about craftsmanship and excellence. But it’s more than functionality – it’s also about emotion. And luxury transcends fashion, too; it takes time to invent, create and make.

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“Chaumet’s founder Marie-Etienne Nitot trained under the jeweller to Marie Antoinette, and after the Revolution became Napoleon Bonaparte’s official jeweller in 1805. This led to numerous commissions from the great and the good, including jewels for Empress Joséphine, after whom one of our most iconic collections is named. The brand’s tiaras went on to be worn by queens and rulers across the globe.

Laurel Leaf Tiara by Joseph Chaumet (1920)

“Yet, our history isn’t enough to sustain us in the 21st century; consumers’ tastes have changed as has the function of jewellery itself. Nowadays, a tiara is not really worn beyond special and rare occasions, so in 2010 we reinvented them by moving them from head to finger for our Joséphine ring collection. Once they were crowns expressing power, but now we have brought them into the modern era in a more delicate and wearable form.

“But not all of our pieces are reinventions. We try to mix tradition and contemporary art; we also like to look to the world of music for ideas. In referring just to the past, the risk is that we will repeat ourselves – we need to inject new elements into the process.”

View the collections: chaumet.com

This article was originally published in the Spring 2020 Issue

Backstage image of a Chaumet tiara being fitted on a model

Tiaras are the cult jewel of maison Chaumet, and their latest exhibition ‘Chaumet in Majesty’ at the Grimaldi Forum, Monaco offers a rare insight into the iconic jewel’s history

Since 1780 Chaumet has been the jeweller to sovereigns. This latest exhibition at Grimaldi Forum recounts the lives of the brand’s royal customers and delves into the history of the jewels themselves, highlighting tiaras as symbolic of timeless feminine power.

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Portrait of Edwina, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, last Vicereine of India, wearing her Chaumet tiara for George VI’s coronation. Photographie de Yevonde, 1937. © Madame Yevonde/Mary Evans Picture Library

As Chaumet demonstrates, a tiara is not just a decorative jewel, but one which has an important functionality, specifically designed to imbue its wearer with virtuous qualities and authority. For example, The Briar Rose Bud tiara (1922) features fauna motif referring back to the power and prestige of classical laurel wreaths whilst the material qualities of the pearls evoke wisdom and diamonds are traditionally associated with timeless elegance and strength. The Pearl and Mircomosaic Parer (1811) also projects an image of its imperial court. The tiara depicts scenes of Roman landscapes through mosaic techniques to lend the piece and its wearer an air of romanticism and grandeur.

‘Chaumet in Majesty’ exhibition at the Grimaldi Forum, Monaco: displaying the tiara with florets of Edwina Countess Mountbatten of Burma, last Vice-Queen of India created by Marcel Chaumet (1886-1964) in 1934 in the workshop of Maison Chaumet. The tiara was entrusted to another Maison who sold it to Lady Edwina Mountbatten. Private collection

Read more: Why we love Cartier’s high jewellery collection ‘Magnitude’

The exhibition brings together 250 pieces of jewellery, some of which are being seen publicly for the first time, sourced from the collections of Prince Albert II of Monaco, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and museum collections from all over the world. In the exhibition we see the heritage of the maison’s forms and the quality and beauty of their pieces, but more importantly, we can begin to appreciate jewellery’s role in signifying women’s power throughout the ages.

‘Chaumet in Majesty’ runs until 28 August 2019 at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. For more information visit: chaumet.com 

Rosie Ellison-Balaam

Working with several designers, Van Cleef & Arpels have breathed new life into their classic collection

This season, we’ve got our eye on the new, youthful additions to Van Cleef & Arpels’ Perlée collection

Perlée is one of Van Cleef & Arpels’ long-standing, classic collections so-called after the maison‘s signature style of beaded jewels. The newest additions offer a fresh twist on the traditional and have been visualised in youthful graphic campaigns created in collaboration with designers such as Santi Zoraidez and Oscar Pettersson, both of whom are known for their playful, pastel aesthetics, digital geometric formations and sizeable Instagram followings.

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This might mark the first steps to a more millennial approach for the traditional French jewellery brand as does the focus on bespoke design. For example, the transformable long beaded necklace allows wearers to swap in the central ring with a variation of three colours (onyx, turquoise and coral) to better suit their mood, outfit or the occasion.

The transformable long beaded necklace with a coral inner ring

One of Van Cleef & Arpels’ new ‘secret watches’ in bracelet style with rose gold and diamonds

Even the more grown-up pieces such as the secret watches have been made-over with contrasting gemstones and precious metals – rose gold paired with diamonds, deep green malachite and orange coral, yellow gold studded with diamonds and lapis lazuli. It’s an effortless, refreshing new look for the collection, and the brand.

Find out more: vancleefarpels.com

Hublot Classic Fusion Bucherer Blue Edition

Hublot’s recently launched timepiece in partnership with Bucherer is at the top of our Christmas list. Here’s why it should be on yours

1. It’s classically beautiful

Dark blue and ageing copper make for an elegant, timeless look.

2. It’s limited edition

Often a loose term, but in this case, it’s actually true. Only 30 pieces have been made.

3. It’s two for the price of one

It’s designed by Hublot for the Bucherer Blue Editions collection, which means you get to say you have a Hublot watch and a Bucherer watch…

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4. It’s unusual

Hublot’s Art of Fusion concept seeks to combine unexpected materials; in this case, the watch’s case brings together ceramic and bronze.

5. It’s wearable with anything

Okay, so it might be slightly on the smarter end of the scale, but it’s surprisingly hardy too. The strap combines blue rubber with alligator leather for extra durability and comfort, and it’s water resistant up to 50m.

6. It will get better with age

Bronze is a material that develops over time, meaning it will only get more and more beautiful.

Convinced? You can buy online via: uk.bucherer.com/hublot-bucherer-blue-editions-watch

Each year, Parisian luxury brand Moynat selects one aspect of their craft to spotlight. This year the focus is clasps, buckles, closures, hooks and rings, as LUX discovers at an exclusive preview in the brand’s Mount Street Boutique in London

The Mini Gaby in Leaf

Artistic director Ramesh Nair‘s most recent designs for Moynat explore the mechanisms of the luxury brand’s bags with the aim of both creating seamless function, ease and elegance.

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The Esquisse Clip bag in Mandarine

Admiring one especially exquisite Art Deco inspired clasp, we’re told that the design is based on the pattern of an architectural arch that Nair was drawn to and photographed. Other closures have been developed for their movement, practicality and playfulness, taking inspiration from classical buckles and locks, or everyday objects. The clasp on the Esquisse Bag, for example, is a bulldog clip on a thin silver chain.

The collection also plays with materials. Encased in very thin layers of stone, the Mini Vanity bags are amongst the most innovative with versions available in sandstone, slate, and granite.

To view the full collection visit: moynat.com

The Zenith El Primero Elite

With its revolutionary new mechanism, Zenith has challenged a 300-year-old watchmaking standard. Rachael Taylor meets the innovator behind the brand

In the Jura mountains, a high-altitude stretch of Switzerland deeply embedded in watchmaking heritage, Julien Tornare is operating a start-up. A 153-year-old start-up. Or at least that’s the way the Zenith chief executive views his leadership of this watch brand in flux.

The past couple of years have been stacked with innovation for Zenith. At global watch fair Baselworld in 2017, the maison delivered a reboot of the quite aptly named Defy collection that has shaken up not only its own offering, but the watchmaking status quo. The star of that first new wave was the Defy El Primero 21, a high-beat chronograph that can offer timing accuracy to 1/100th of a second, should you need to be absolutely sure which of your colleagues can complete the morning coffee run the swiftest.

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The Defy Classic with a blue alligator leather strap

Six months later came the really big news. Defy Lab, an experimental line of watches powered by silicone oscillators, not metal, had the watch community ready to self-combust. This was the first time that someone – Guy Sémon, a physicist and former French navy pilot, who is now the general director of Zenith’s sister brand TAG Heuer, to be exact – had successfully challenged the 300-year-old balance spring method developed by Dutch horologist Christiaan Huygens, the man responsible for the satisfying swing of an oscillating weight on your wrist.

What in traditional mechanical watchmaking once required 30 individual metal components, can now be done with just one silicon part. As well as reducing possible mechanical complications by having only one component to maintain, and making the watch lighter, this alternative silicon-driven mechanism also uses less power, and so increases the power reserve of the watch.

Zenith watches are still made in its atelier in Le Locle, Switzerland

The Defy Classic

When the Defy Lab watches were launched, just 10 were made, and these experimental timepieces were very much sold as experiences. For an entry fee of CHF29,900, a small group of connoisseurs was inducted into the Defy Lab. Each was flown first class to Switzerland to collect their watch, and have dinner and a wine tasting session with Tornare and his boss Jean-Claude Biver, the charismatic president of Zenith parent company LVMH’s watch division. Between jovial sips and nibbles, the two pressed upon these early adopters that by supporting this launch, they are now part of watchmaking lore, and also that their watches might be less than flawless.

“There might be some corrections,” admits Tornare. “I told them, you’re buying the research so your watches may not be perfect. They understand that they are part of the turning point, not only for Zenith but for the whole [watchmaking] industry.” Rather than be put off, this collusive, pioneering spirit has the collectors rapt – and connected. “On their own initiative, they have created their own WhatsApp group,” says Tonare.

Read more: Why you need to see the Rodin “Draw, Cut” exhibition at Musée Rodin, Paris

While the Defy Lab launched to much fanfare – with watches delivered by drone to a packed-out preview as Biver shouted, “We are the future of watchmaking!” – the use of silicone has had its detractors, who are worried that this game-changing engineering could destroy traditional horology. “Every time we change something you have two different reactions,” muses Tornare. “Purists are often against change, but when you get to the wider population of clients and millennials, that’s what they want. They want to buy something that brings something new and creative. We have to work between these worlds.”

Though he refers to the purists as friends, it is the more adventurous crowd that Tornare is really pursuing with the new direction in which he has been pushing Zenith since his arrival at the brand 18 months ago. “I worked a lot with Mr Biver [when I first joined], we exchanged a lot on the DNA of the brand,” he says. “In 153 years of history, there has always been a very strong spirit of innovation. Now the big question is, how do we keep millennials interested in mechanical watches? If we don’t want to become a museum brand, we have to keep bringing new things.”

When speaking of Zenith’s innovation, Tornare refers to the El Primero, which, when it launched in the 1960s was the first Swiss-made, fully integrated automatic chronograph, making it revolutionary at the time. And the line remains one of the most respected automatic chronographs in its price range today. Yet, like the rest of the Swiss watch industry, Zenith got complacent in the boom times. “The whole industry became a little bit static, especially in the past 12 to 15 years when all the brands did so well with the first generation of Chinese [wealthy consumers] buying anything at any price. Maybe the industry became a little bit lazy. Global brands tended to look to the past, including Zenith. It’s very important to wake up. We need to build from our heritage, but also create for the future.”

The Zenith building’s facade bears the initials of founder Georges Favre-Jacot

Zenith’s manufacturing facility was renovated in 2012

Tornare is applying this methodology not only to the products that Zenith produces, but to the entire company ethos. And with freshly installed ping-pong tables and cosy weekly breakfast chats with the entire team, he is consciously creating a start-up culture within a heritage luxury business. The concept is so alien that the highly respected IMD business school in Lausanne, at which Tornare himself studied, is currently working on a case study about Zenith and the challenges of being a retrospective start-up.

The Defy Classic with a titanium bracelet

Yet, for Tornare, who has spent much of his 25-year career in watches outside of his Swiss homeland, taking jobs in Hong Kong and the US, it makes perfect sense. “We have to think differently,” he says. “Swiss watch companies, and those located in the mountains, such as Zenith, are turned to the past. When I came on board, I started talking about a start-up spirit. I want to be innovative and dynamic.”

Read more: We ask Corum’s CEO Jérôme Biard 6 Questions

With a large staff deeply ingrained in Swiss watch culture, spread over 18 buildings, it was a hard sell at first. “The first [breakfast] sessions were difficult as it was a bit of a one-way speech and people were not interacting, but by the fourth session they got the exercise and one watchmaker stood up and asked, ‘Why don’t we have big celebrities like other brands?’,” says Tornare, who deftly responded that the lack of star power comes down to budgetary issues. “For me, though, it’s not about ideas to implement, it’s about the exchange and to make them feel part of the adventure.”

Stacked watch plates during manufacturing

The next step in that adventure is to commercialise the Defy Lab watches. “From the very beginning, we didn’t want to have 10 prototypes and then stop there,” says Tornare. “I still remember as a kid at the Geneva car show, you could see so many great cars looking like space ships, but they would never get on the market.” This isn’t what he wants for his brand.

Moving Defy Lab beyond science experiment status to full-blown innovator requires scale, and Tornare is “95 percent sure” that just after Baselworld 2019 at the end of March next year, Zenith should release a more commercial offering of these watches. Production levels will depend on keeping to a strict testing schedule, but Tornare is hopeful of producing between 400 and 600 watches, which he expects to be offered at a more accessible sub-€15,000 price tag.

The margin of error is so high for the silicone oscillators, that should the shape be out by a micron (the silicone is cut by laser and hand corrected), it will not keep time accurately, and as such, each watch needs to be individually tested. Tornare should know more at the end of the summer, when his team return from their holidays and bring back the Defy Lab watches they have been testing in different environments. Not quite the strict lab conditions we expect from Switzerland, but this crowd-funded research most definitely fits in with the all-new modern attitude of this evolving watchmaking legend.

View Zenith’s collections: zenith-watches.com

The Heritage Corum Lab 01

Luxury Swiss watch brand Corum is known for its boundary-pushing designs and adaptability. Following the relaunch of the iconic Golden Bridge collection with a brand new all-black aesthetic, we asked the brand’s CEO Jérôme Biard six questions.

Jérôme Biard

1. What comes first innovation or heritage?

Innovation comes first as it becomes very quickly heritage: time is flying. We need innovation to go forward.

2. How does Corum capture and hold the attention of millennials?

We like to play with our Bubble collection and artistic partnerships. We are also coming out with disruptive collections like our new Corum Lab 01.

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3. Are women becoming more influential in the luxury watch market?

Women represent 50% of the population on earth which means that we have the potential to expand. Also, watches are more and more used as fashion accessories and specifically created for women, they do not make a man’s watch into a woman’s watch. This is the reason why, we recently launched the Eleganza, the epitome of classic female elegance and subtly. We also launched during Baselworld our new Golden Bridge Round Jewellery. Beside, we have Elisabetta Fantone, Canadian pop artist + Juliette Jourdain, French photographer as ambassadors since 2016.

The Eleganza collection by Corum

The Golden Bridge, Corum’s iconic timepiece

4. Is there such thing as a unique design?

We launched the Bubble collection in 2000 to push our customers limits and introduce them to the quirkiest designs on the market. At 52mm, the statement Bubble is instantly recognizable due to its size and weight. On the other end of the scale, we recently launched the Bubble Mini, a 17mm cocktail watch that can be stacked or worn alone.

Our in-line baguette movement set in our Golden Bridge has been unique on the market since its launch in 1980, and there is still nothing else like it.

Read more: Why Lake Como’s appealing to a new generation of travellers

5. Will smartwatches take over?

I don’t think that classic watches are in competition with smartwatches. I believe that people will always desire hand-crafted pieces made from luxury materials and know-how. The style, the craftsmanship exceed the function.

6. What’s your favourite Corum watch and why?

It’s difficult to choose only one. Golden Bridge + Admiral Legend 42 mm blue bracelet and blue dial. We recently launched the Admiral Legend 42 Cabinet de Curiosités de l’Hotel de Crillon par Thomas Erber, beautiful!

Discover Corum’s collections: corum-watches.com

Caroline on the red carpet of the Cannes Film Festival closing ceremony in May this year

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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A Red Carpet Collection necklace

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.

Emerald and diamond earrings (above) and necklace from Chopard’s Red Carpet collection

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.

Caroline sketching the palme d’or design

A Red Carpet Collection bracelet

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.

Cate Blanchett wearing Chopard creations at this year’s Cannes Film Festival

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.

Read more: Parisian designer Jacques Garcia on creating spaces for seduction

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.

Lupita Nyong’o in Chopard at this year’s Cannes Film Festival

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.

Actress Celina Jade also wearing Chopard at this year’s Cannes Film Festival

Caroline with Jacky Ickx and her brother Karl- Friedrich Scheufele at Cannes

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.

A Red Carpet Collection necklace

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

Richemont’s debut watch brand Baume aims for total sustainability

Uber luxury goods holding company Richemont owns some of the world’s biggest brands in the watch and jewellery industries including Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, IWC Schaffhausen, Piaget and Vacheron Constantin. Now the company has created their own luxury watch brand with the aim of total sustainability. Introducing Baume.

The Iconic Series

Baume is targeting a truly modern mindset. The brand’s luxury timepieces are not only fully customisable, but created through sustainable processes, using a online configurator with over 2000 variations to provide consumer choice and reduce waste. It might sound like a clever marketing ploy, but to demonstrate full commitment, the brand has partnered with Waste Free Oceans to create watches and parts from recycled plastics, with the view to collaborate with similar organisations in the future.

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“We use no animal-based or precious materials and unused components are recycled or re-used. Our interchangeable watchstraps are made from natural, up-cycled or recycled fabrics such as cork, cotton, linen, alcantara and recycled PET. Packaging is kept to a minimum: there is no secondary packaging and only FSC-certified paper and cardboard are used,” comments Baume Brand leader Marie Chassot.

Baume is committed to using upcycled, recycled and sustainable materials

The design aesthetic of the brand’s debut collections the Iconic and Custom Timepiece Series is minimalist and contemporary. The Iconic watch features a case made from partly recycled aluminium and a strap made from 100% recycled PET (plastic), with the plan to release a limited edition made from other recycled materials later this year.

Read more:  Wine, tango and dinner with the Coppolas at Auction Napa Valley

The Custom Timepiece Series allows customers to pick from two stainless steel size cases, a variety of colours, number of dial executions, various features and straps made from materials such as natural cork, cotton and linen – our favourite for this summer is the cotton variation in burgundy.

To view the full collections and customise your own timepiece visit: baumewatches.com

Ulysse Nardin FREAK VISION, launched at this year’s SIHH

The venerable Swiss watchmaker Ulysse Nardin, known for its elaborate and striking timepieces, was purchased by luxury group Kering (owner of Gucci, Bottega Veneta and Stella McCartney) in 2014 and recently appointed Patrick Pruniaux as its CEO. Hailing from Apple‘s smartwatch division, and before that rival brand TAG Heuer, Pruniaux reveals some bold new designs at this week’s Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie fair in Geneva. His challenges: to differentiate Ulysse Nardin from others in a crowded market; to conquer China; and to conquer the Millennial market.

Patrick Pruniaux

LUX: Talk us through your releases at SIHH and also the Torpilleur?
Patrick Pruniaux: The general theme of our SIHH 2018 is #freakmeout! And the watch epitomising at best this mindset is the new FREAK VISION, a true revolution in terms of energy optimisation in a mechanical watch.

The Marine Torpilleur has been launched as our pre-SIHH novelty last October and It’s already a best seller.

LUX: What were the challenges you faced on taking up the position of CEO?
Patrick Pruniaux: Surprisingly, not so many. The foundations were there: incredible products, stunning know-how, motivated teams and great heritage. However, in terms of marketing and communication, we need to improve the storytelling and to create the dream around our products.

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LUX: What are the most interesting aspects of the luxury watch market for you?
Patrick Pruniaux: Challenges are always more interesting than assets. In the case of the watch industry, we have to invest on millennials. They represent the future and they are keener at wearing a connected than a mechanical watch.

LUX: Where are the most vibrant markets, and where do you have most growth potential?
Patrick Pruniaux: The USA, Russia and China are key markets for Ulysse Nardin. Historically, we are very strong in America and Russia. China represents for us a huge potential development.

LUX: Is the luxury watch space becoming too crowded? How do you differentiate?
Patrick Pruniaux: Creativity is the one and only answer.

Carriage assembly of the Tourbillon timepiece

LUX: How important is heritage vs innovation?
Patrick Pruniaux: One needs the other. Heritage always inspires innovations. Take for example our new Marine Torpilleur, its design comes directly from our onboard marine chronometers.

LUX: How important are technological advances and complications? Patrick Pruniaux: At Ulysse Nardin, innovation is driven by the research of horological performance. The best illustration I could give is our “Grinder” technology: a unique winding system we have incorporated in our new FREAK VISION timepiece, launched at SIHH 2018. Thanks to this innovation, every tiny movement of the wrist is optimised to rewind the barrel spring in the most performant way.

LUX: Are women becoming more influential in the watch market? Patrick Pruniaux: They have always been. Most of the time, when a man buys a watch, he always wants to know his wife’s opinion.

LUX: Do you wish to change what Ulysse Nardin stands for?
Patrick Pruniaux: Ulysse Nardin always stands for ultimate innovation, the desire to be different, the urge for exploration, in one word: freedom. This will remain the same, we are just going to express it in a different way.

LUX: Kering is not known for its watch brands – what is it like being a watch company in a fashion-oriented group?
Patrick Pruniaux: Great inspiration because the fashion world is going much faster than the watchmaking world, it’s very creative and drives us always one step forward.

Read next: 6 reasons to buy a high power Mercedes-AMG

Wheel bridge fitting by hand in the Ulysse Nardin workshop

LUX: LUX’s tagline is Responsible Luxury; Kering has a powerful sustainability program. How important is that for your consumers? Patrick Pruniaux: It’s a key value for the group and for Ulysse Nardin. Our territory is the sea, therefore, sustainability is at the heart of our brand positioning.

LUX: What’s your favourite Ulysse Nardin watch and why?
Patrick Pruniaux: Right now, I am totally in love with the new FREAK VISION, I am sure it will be the hero of the whole SIHH.

LUX: Will smartwatches wipe out mechanical watches?
Patrick Pruniaux: I don’t believe it will. At least not in the high-end segment. Why do you think I am back in traditional watchmaking? Just because I think there is not a product that is more contemporary than a mechanical watch.

ulysse-nardin.com

A range of glasses crafted by Moser

Moser glassworks was founded in 1857 in the tiny quaint town of Karlovy Vary, just outside of Prague, and is now one of the world’s best-known luxury artisanal glassware brands. Kitty Harris travelled to the glass workshop to speak to Moser’s Art Director, Lukáš Jabůrek about inspirations, collaborations and meeting the demands of diverse luxury markets on the brand’s 160th anniversary year.

Lukáš Jabůrek, Moser’s Art Director

Kitty Harris: What is your background? How did you start?
Lukáš Jabůrek: I studied the cutting and design of glass at a school in Nový Bor. I later worked as a glass cutter in various glass factories in France, The Netherlands and Ireland for some years. I then worked as a teacher in a glass school and later, I came to Moser as an artist, designer and technologist.

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KH: Why did you choose glass cutting? Was it a tradition within your family?
LJ: During my childhood, I always enjoyed painting and architecture, so I decided to attend art school. During my time there, I became involved in glass cutting and I found it inspiring. It is so diverse, as it can be used to make sculptures and decorations, amongst many other things.

KH: What is the best thing about your job?
LJ: Cutting! Every day is different and I always have new ideas and designs. I find the process of cutting glass here in the studio very relaxing.

KH: Where do you draw inspiration from?
LJ: From architecture, nature and life in general. I take inspiration from everything around me.

KH: How do you encourage younger generations? It is a very specialised practice and not many young people may know about it or are interested…
LJ: It is very difficult because many young people don’t know about glass cutting or necessarily want to work with it. Physically, it is very difficult work. With oven temperatures reaching 1400 degrees the manual work is exhausting. If the temperature outside is above 30 degrees we do not allow the glassblowers to work as is it too hot in the factory. As the day goes on, the ovens cool down, to 700 degrees and at this temperature we can make larger pieces of glass – though this is even more demanding work.

Glass blowing at the Moser workshop

In order to deal with this, we partner with schools and students. I search for talent and I invite students to do internships at the studio. Now they only have three or four students per year so it is very small selection to choose from. They train for three years at glass making school and many drop out. But here in the glass factory, we have two student departments and a glass school. This year we will have the very first female glassblower to work at Moser glassworks. We rely a lot on tradition, the craft being passed down generation to generation. Recently, our master glass blower, who has worked at Moser for 60 years, retired and his son is now the manager of the glassblowing workshop.

Read Next: Britain’s newest and greatest intellectual festival at Cliveden House

KH: What makes Moser special?
LJ: It is the combination and range of colours compared to all the glass factories in the world which have a large but basic colour ranges. And of course, it is a 100% handmade production, with cutting, engraving and painting all done by hand. Visitors are invited to the Moser Museum and some guided tours are available around the site, though the work rooms are closed to the public as the workers need a quiet environment to concentrate in as one wrong 1mm line of engraving can mean a piece (that has gone through 20 other hands before it arrived) is thrown away. Once a year we do an open door day where we run competitions and invite locals and families to spend the day at the factory.

Glass art engravings in the Moser workshop

KH: Why is it a luxury?
LJ: Because it is a special design from the best designers. The colour range is very unique. With regards to production, we have the best cutters and engravers. We maintain very high quality, because we get rid of 70% of the glass at the first innining – these might have bubbles, dust or imperfections. One vase may take one hour, and ten vases go to the next worker in the production chain but this ten may yield only two pieces. So, you must make many pieces for selection.

A piece must be ordered 3 months in advance. Unlike fast paced production lines, seen in other luxury brands, that produce replicated items, each Moser glassworks piece is unique. If an order requires engraving, this can take much longer than three months, bearing in mind to paint one piece can take a whole month.

Read next: Geoffrey Kent on the world’s most extraordinary natural wonders

KH: How does the company stay contemporary?
LJ: We say that we collect traditional, historic and contemporary design. We keep a specific face of Moser glassworks, but we also collaborate with other designers, artists and architects. We look for new contemporary trends and styles.

KH: The 160th anniversary collection was the biggest you’ve ever made. What different inspiration went into that collection?
LJ: The inspiration for this collection was the history of Moser glassworks as a company. We selected seven periods of time from the last 160 years to represent different eras. Every part has a few pieces from these periods, including historical motifs, engraved art nouveau plant decorations and gilded African scenes.

KH: You have to cater to different luxury markets, how do they compare?
LJ: For certain countries we have special collections, for Taiwan we do a selection of hand engraved animals on colour glass vases. In terms of platinum or gold painted detail, the USA prefer Platinum whilst the EU prefers Gold; this is why Queen Elizabeth’s Splendid Collection is painted in 24kt gold paint.

KH: You have partnerships with some big luxury brands, including Asprey, David Linley and William & Son. Which are the most successful and why?
LJ: They are successful because it is the merging of two different worlds that still have the same traditions of quality and philosophy. We are very like-minded.

Kitty Harris: How does your design approach differ for each brand?
Lukáš Jabůrek: I look at history, for example history of Great Britain and the culture. I look at these symbols for specific inspiration.

Stem forming using a wooden mould in the Moser glassworks factory

KH: Can you draw a distinction between Moser as a product and Moser as an art?
LJ: There is a very small difference, because Moser does not carry out mass machine production. It is careful art production and every piece is unique and original. In our glass factory, every piece is really specific. The construction of every piece is unique. Whilst drink sets have more classic production, our decorative objects are made differently as artistic pieces.

KH: What’s next for Moser glassworks?
LJ: I would like to maintain exceptional standards. But, I would like to introduce fresh designs whilst keeping the history firmly in the design. We would also like to develop a presence in interior design for hotels, restaurants and resorts. For example, developing lamps and chandeliers. It is always evolving at Moser.

moser-glass.com

Priya Paul, one of India’s most prominent entrepreneurs, is chairperson of the design conscious, luxury five-star boutique hotel group ‘The Park Hotels’. She is heir to the Apeejay Surrendra Group, owners of Typhoo Tea, and her determination, spirit for hospitality and flair for design awarded her India’s fourth highest civilian honour, the Padma Shri in 2012 (for her services to Trade & Industry by the President of India). The President of the French Republic granted her Insignia of Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite (National Order of Merit) an Order of State.  Kitty Harris talks to Priya about the Indian luxury market, leadership and innovating whilst staying true to heritage.

Priya Paul

LUX: Apeejay Surrendra Group has been running for over 100 years. How has the business evolved since it began?
Priya Paul: The family business started over one hundred years ago with my grandfather and my father’s brothers and the business was originally in steel – in steel trading, small manufacturing and then into steel production. It then moved into shipping. We do dry bulk cargo ships and shipping, and we still have that business.

Later we added businesses such as hospitality, tea, real estate, finance, logistics and a whole lot of other businesses. Right now, it is my brother, my sister and myself who run the business and the main sort of businesses are shipping tea. We are the largest producers of tea in the country and we own Typhoo UK. We also have a hospitality business, real estate, logistics and other financial investments.

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LUX: What is the greatest challenge facing a group with so many different branches of investment?
Priya Paul: Indian businesses have been more diversified and have responded to many of the needs that the country has had in terms of investing. Traditionally, a lot of Indian business houses have largely been diversified. Firstly, to respond to the different needs and industries that arose when India was in its early decades of birth. I think having a diversified list of assets has been quite good for us over the long term; sometimes one thing is a drag and in other times, another one is. Particularly in a large family it has been quite good, because everyone has their own space.

LUX: It’s a family run business, is this ever difficult?
Priya Paul: Our family business was much larger, until we split up in 1989. Since then it has been my brother, my sister and myself. My mother and one of my uncles were also involved the nineties, so at one point there were five of us in the business. As I said, the business is large enough for everyone to have their own space. Yet, we make a lot of decisions together, certainly in the larger investments or re-investing. Decisions are made by us siblings now, together, and I think as we’ve grown up pretty much in the same age we see a lot of the same things and our world view is very similar. It has been quite rewarding for us.

LUX: You began your career under your father, the late Surrendra Paul, what was the greatest lesson you learnt from him?
Priya Paul: I worked with my dad for about a year and a half before he died. I think my father was very disciplined and I could see that in his work and in what he did. I can’t say I’m as disciplined, but it is something I try to emulate. He was especially disciplined and so I learnt from that. He would say, “work hard and play hard, and enjoy life too”. So that is how I live my life.

LUX: You’re the Chairperson of Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels – what is the key to its success?
Priya Paul: We are celebrating fifty years this year. It has always been a very young and vibrant company that reflected a contemporary aesthetic, even when it first opened in 1967. I would say my role has been to actually reposition and build it for a new generation of travelers and customers – both Indian and international. The success has really been to reinvigorate the brand, provide it with meaning and to position it as something that is far from ordinary. That’s my tagline: ‘anything but ordinary’.

LUX: The Park Hotels have new properties under construction, Chettinad (old palace conversion), Mumbai and Jim Corbett National Park – how do you decide on location and maintain the five-star level across so many properties?
Priya Paul: We have two brands now. We have one called The Park, which is a fifty-year-old, luxury, five-star brand with full service that’s routed in the design. When I go to look at a property, I want something from the interiors that I can create a unique identity with. Personally, it is very important for the space to be creative, interesting and not like any normal hotel you might see. The site and location are dependent on the type of city, as the city must be able to take that kind of hotel. We have now also launched a brand called Zone by the Park, which I call a design and price conscious hotel. Similar in essence to that of The Park, as they are still fun, lively and vibrant and remain a reflection of the local space. However, they are in smaller spaces in smaller cities and the hotel size typically ranges from 65 rooms to 300 rooms at most. The idea here is to create a vibrant, big-city atmosphere within a small city. Since that is what the smaller, growing, cities in India want and need. There is a whole aspirational class of customers that want a nice bar and restaurant with international food, as well as the local specialties. They want spaces where they can entertain and have their weddings.

LUX: How do the contemporary luxury boutique hotels (The Park Group Hotels) set themselves apart from the rest?
Priya Paul: I think it’s a combination of many things. We orchestrate the whole design and aesthetic of how the hotel looks; however, it is also how the hotel behaves. This is in terms of how the spaces interact and how the customer feels when they relax and are at ease in a place. There is still outstanding service, but our staff have been trained to deal with customers on a more equal basis and to be more relaxed and casual with them. It seems very simple now, but when we discussed it twenty years ago there was big kind of difference between how staff in a hotel would be treated by customers. There was a class difference and I think that has changed because hotels now attract younger service staff. I feel we have taken care to hire creative people with individuality, who are able to deliver that service in a different way. When we started talking about that around twenty years ago, that was quite a unique approach and that is the feel when you go into The Park. It is relaxed and casual and people are friendly. You have everything you might need and want, in an environment that is fun, creative and interesting.

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LUX: Is it important to hold on to heritage and tradition or to keep current?
Priya Paul: I think it’s a combination of two things. I am a firm believer that you need to know your culture and heritage and to preserve part of it, whilst allowing yourself to move forward. So, it’s a tricky balance. That being said, one of the hotels that we are currently restoring is in a palace. I firmly believe in heritage conservation and I believe this also applies to food. Twenty-five years ago we were not even exploring what our Indian food heritage was. But within twenty years, people have caught up and realised we are losing our grains, our vegetables, our techniques and our recipes. It is very important that we preserve those, but also that we move forward with them. Our food does not have to look the same for five hundred centuries. It has to evolve. For example, we host The Parks New Festival, which is a performing arts festival that now runs in six cities for a month – we started off in just one city! We do this because it’s actually for new performances not the old stuff, we want creatives to push and move forward. So how do you push comedy or music or dance? There’s that and I also think maybe it’s from my personal interest; you have to know your tradition, but we must still know how to move forward, explore and experiment.

LUX: How has the hospitably climate changed in India and how did you respond to these changes?
Priya Paul: We’ve always had a few very good luxury hotels because a lot of the palaces were converted. What’s happened in the last twenty five years, is many of the Indian brands invested in some great
properties and developed new circuits and new properties in lots of locations. A lot of the international brands have come in with their high-end brands, whether it’s Grand Hyatt and The Four Seasons. I think it has changed a lot. We have about eight million international tourists traveling into India but we have over 400 million Indian travelers traveling. So, the strength of the Indian market has never been better. At all levels of the 400 million people you need hotels and accommodation. And as people earn more money they want to move on to the next best thing. So, there is a lot of demand for luxury products within India, whether it is cars,hotel rooms, luxury dining or experiences. That has fueled a demand to supply and create those products. At all segments of the market I’ve seen growth; we are growing at seven something percent.

The Park Calangute Goa

LUX: What’s the ultimate luxury in hospitality?
Priya Paul: You know I think I’m more of an explorer, I like exploring new places and cities or neighborhoods. For me, the luxury is in the exploration, in getting to know the area. I used to plan everything a lot more and now I just go to a place and I just discover. I think that’s also quite exciting, to just explore and you never know what you are going to find. Also, I always look for a hotel that is interesting, design wise. I typically don’t choose a chain hotel to stay in, unless there are brands doing new things. I don’t mind doing things once or twice, just to see what’s on. I look for a clean aesthetic, contemporary rooms; similar to what I do now with hotels. On the other hand, I also sometimes like grand, luxurious hotels and those old-fashioned hotels can sometimes be quite charming and interesting too. It depends on the destination.

LUX: You are a trustee of Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts (IGNCA) and board member of the National Council of Science Museums. You’re passionate about art and design, an art collector too – where did your love of the arts begin and how do you incorporate it into what you do?
Priya Paul: I think my love of the arts started off because I lived in Calcutta with my parents. Calcutta at that stage, and even now, is considered a very artistic city. The people are artistic and into the arts whether its music, dance, theatre or fine art. At a young age I did oil painting and my parents would take us to all the exhibitions in town. And at that time, in the seventies, there weren’t many art exhibitions in India but there were some in Calcutta. We would go to exhibitions, to see art and new artists. At that time, my parents collected art for the hotels, as well as personally, and so we were exposed to it at a young age and it just stayed with me.

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LUX: You’ve received numerous accolades and acknowledgements that include the FHRAI (Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Association of India) who inducted you into their hall of fame in 2010. You were awarded “Excellence in Design Innovation 2011” by Condé Nast Traveller India. Which one was the most special to you?
Priya Paul: Numerous and I think a lot of them are from the industry. In the early years, it was very important to get those recognitions from the industry because I was not from the industry. I was doing something quite disruptive, I was making people look at hotels in a different way. It was great to be recognised then as doing something different and being successful but I think the most proud moment was the one I got from the government of India in 2012. The Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour, which was completely unexpected. I am probably one of the youngest people to get it in the industry and that was a very lovely recognition.

LUX: What does it take to be a good leader?
Priya Paul: Leadership requires different things at different times. I think I have a good “people instinct” and I enjoy working with people. But I’m also not afraid to make decisions and I think you have to be courageous as a leader, to make decisions whether they are bad or good. And you have to perform and stick by your decisions.

The Park Hyderabad

LUX: You’re a powerful female figure, with Forbes recognising you as top 100 most powerful business women in India – have you ever faced challenges in business from your gender?
Priya Paul: I’m lucky, in that I work in my own family business. When you work in your own family business you get the benefit of people accepting you because you are in that ownership and leadership role. Having said that, I started working at a very young age and I was also working at a time when there were very few young people working in business at a leadership level. Very often I felt people looked at me and thought you’re too young to be making that decision or to be in a decision-making role. I got more of a youth bias than a discrimination bias. But I was the owner and when in that position, you obviously have to handle yourself correctly whether you’re young or a woman. To me it doesn’t make a difference whether you’re a man or a woman, as long as they perform. But there are many people who have issues with it. I didn’t directly face that gender bias because of the industry I’m in. Even when I joined as a marketing manager, and General Manger of one hotel, when my father was around there were quite a few women in leadership roles in hospitality, because hospitality was much more equal. Women would always be heads of Sales and Marketing or Housekeeping, with a few General Managers and a few chefs. So there were even people twenty-five years ago in those leadership roles. There were some powerful women, even in hospitality.

LUX: Why was it important for you to be a Chairperson for the South Asia Women’s Fund?
Priya Paul: I was invited by Ford Foundation to be one of the founding directors of the South-East Asia Women’s Fund and I have always been a proponent of women’s empowerment and women’s leadership. Partly having had leadership roles in my School and College and having gone to a very pure feminist college in the US. It’s always been a part of my consciousness and so it’s my way of giving back and providing that leadership to the organisation. I was a director for many years, and I was elected to be chair a few years ago. It’s very interesting as I’m not from the field of women’s rights or activism but I think the organisation needed me to give it more direction, which I think has been quite successful. The organisation is doing good work.

LUX: If you hadn’t of gone into the family business, what would you have done?
Priya Paul: Well I’m asked that question a lot, and I have a standard answer for that. For many years I’ve said I would have been a chef. Cooking and food; it’s also a passion of mine. And luckily, I have wonderful chefs and I get to live vicariously through them. But that’s what I would’ve done, I would have run my own restaurant.

Joe Sitt, President and CEO of Thor Equities

Joseph Sitt, President and CEO of Thor Equities, sits atop a luxury property, retail and advisory empire that straddles the western hemisphere. His company owns and develops prime retail property throughout the US, as well as Latin America and Europe. The portfolio and development pipeline of the New York-based company, which he founded in 1986, is in excess of US $18bn.

He is also known as something of a luxury visionary: unlike many property companies, his firms (he also runs Thor Retail Advisors, a leading retail agent and consultant; and others) work closely with fashion and luxury brands to ‘place make’, transforming the areas they are based in. Like LUX, he also believes in mixing high luxury with creative emerging brands to create an atmosphere of discovery as well as indulgence. LUX Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai caught up with Sitt on one of his whirlwind visits to London about the rise of LA, Mexico, and the future of luxury retail.

LUX: Tell me about the rise of LA as a destination.
Joe Sitt: There is physically no more room in San Francisco for office space and for homes, for rental buildings and retail. So, much of that industry is migrating to LA because it’s also on the coast and it’s got better weather. It’s also got more culture and things happening, so there is a lot of migration there, and a lot of wealth being created in LA. And you are getting a lot of second home owners (from the San Francisco area) who are buying in LA.

Between the businesses migrating their technology and the second home owners there, the revitalisation and reactivation in LA is tremendous. You can see also that new restaurants are incredibly successful. And it’s not just coming into LA proper. It’s also coming from down below for example into Santa Monica and Venice Beach. You have tech companies like Snapchat whose headquarters are based over there.

The other aspect of it is the creative industries in LA. Some real fashion is coming out of there for the first time in quite a while. Secondly, the movie industry. For the first time the movie making business is a real profitable business for film makers, writers – salaries are going up tremendously for all of them and for anybody affiliated with the industry.

The tech industry has so much wealth and power and it has the “funny money”, because their stock prices are so high; for example the FANGs – Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google – their stock prices are so high that they are throwing money very aggressively at almost anything. And that is crossing with the fact that the biggest thing that all of those tech companies need, and that they don’t have the ability to do within their tech shops, is actually content.

So now what you have is, if someone is making movies in LA you actually have a shot at a bidding war between Amazon, Netflix, etc. Even Snapchat have announced that they want to be buying and delivering content. That’s creating a really exciting time for the LA market for the people in all forms of the creative industry. A combination of wealth and creatives.

LUX: And in parallel the visual arts has revived there in the last 10 years.
Joe Sitt: Yes. For example, my friends at the [Helly] Nahmad gallery, who are the largest owners of Picassos in the world, now see how many people are coming from the West Coast to consume their products in New York. So they are opening their third outpost: they’ve got London, New York and are now looking to the West Coast. You’ve got [Larry] Gagosian who’s got his New York Gallery, he sees where the zip codes are where he’s shipping his product to. So while people are opening up shop in San Francisco, to get to the wealth proper a lot of them are really looking to the arts district in LA.

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LUX: Do you see the emergence, despite Donald Trump, of LA and Mexico emerging as one entwined retail and luxury zone?
Joe Sitt: Very much so. I look at Mexico as a big new frontier in luxury fashion. A tremendous amount of wealth has been created in that country. In terms of those people who think that Donald Trump’s policies are going to hurt Mexico…I will throw you a curveball and show you how he’s actually getting the opposite result from what people think would happen and perhaps what he intended. I will give you two examples.

One, is in terms of the border in terms of trade as well as in in terms of immigration and how they actually play out. Sometimes when you shoot a bullet when it comes to policy you don’t know who the victim is going to be. The trade announcement forced a tremendous amount of devaluation in the Mexican Peso. The Peso went from around ten pesos to the dollar ten years ago to twenty two recently; so about half. The net result of doing that was making Mexico as a country and as an exporter more competitive.

As a result of making them more competitive from their currency it increased America’s trade deficit with Mexico dramatically over the last quarter. The opposite of what everyone expected to happen in that first quarter. The second thing that occurred with regard to the second policy, immigration, also had an unintended consequence; which is as a result of being tighter on the border for immigration, US companies have started to create tech centres in Mexico. In Guadalajara, and in Tijuana for those companies in San Diego who just want to be able to cross the border and travel 45 minutes to their foreign teams.

So now you’ve seen an incredible resurgence of business and activity in both Guadalajara and Tijuana in Mexico for the tech industry as a result of those tough policies. It’s a place so close to the United States and you can house all of the greatest foreign minds in the world.

The Ferragamo store on Masaryk street in Mexico City

LUX: Mexico has been seen as an outlier in terms of luxury retail.
Joe Sitt: It takes time for a market to react to some of things I’ve mentioned. It’s now waking up. I feel that the entire luxury market has been sleeping at the wheel regarding the Mexico opportunity. And so now they are just waking up to it. Those who are waking up to it are finding success in the market place. But it takes time for them to mobilise.

LUX: Can you tell us your vision for what you’re doing there, because it’s a long term play.
Joe Sitt: We are attacking it from multiple prongs. One of course is just bringing luxury retail there, and creating a platform for it to come to, for the first time. We sparked the revitalisation a street called Masaryk and in an area called Polanco, in the heart of Mexico City. In the old days it was an Upper East Side kind of marketplace that was starting to become abandoned and is now revitalised.

LUX: And is that now going to be the Rue St Honoré of Mexico?
Joe Sitt: Yes exactly right. You’re starting to see it. Hermès, Ferragamo, Gucci and Goyard just opened there. So you’ve got some great brands already.

LUX: Was this through you?
Joe Sitt: We were the spark that brought it all together.

Thom Sweeney SS17

LUX: Integrating investment in emerging fashion brands and developing districts seems pretty for a property company. What’s behind it?
Joe Sitt: Candidly, it’s more of a passion. Yes, there are financial benefits of being on the ground floor of some of the most exciting brands and investing with them or representing and aiding them. Yes, there will be financial reward, probably in years to come when a Thom Sweeney explodes and goes next level or a Drakes or an Edward Green or a Maison Bonnet. But for me, more than anything else, at this stage in my career I am looking for things that I enjoy personally. And I enjoy young and exciting luxury brands and helping them achieve their potential. I get my personal thrill vicariously through their success.

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LUX: Is your ideal scenario that they grow up to be the next Moynat, Vuitton, Hermès?
Joe Sitt: In some cases yes, in some cases no. For some, Maison Bonnet, the eyeglasses company, we are going to help them make the move from Paris’s first and only little artisan shop to executing in London. It’s about growing the business but not necessarily overgrowth or creating a Goliath.

LUX: And is the long term that you are buying, building and selling them?
Joe Sitt: I have to be careful in terms of conflict so I can’t say which ones I invest in. Other than to say when I do make investments in them I am focused on very very long term. It’s not to buy and sell. It will go wherever the visionary wants to take it, who’s owning the business, will we ride with this vision. In terms of our advisory business, our goal for these companies is to help them reach whatever their potential is, or is meant to be. Some of them it’s meant to be a very large business, some of them it’s not. We do the same thing with tech related businesses. I mentioned Warby Parker [an eyewear company], we were with them from the start, opening all of their first locations. Helping them understand the challenges of physical retailing versus internet retailing.

LUX: You are a property person. But is retail moving online?
Joe Sitt: There will be challenges in terms of distribution for people to buy things online for many years to come. And buying direct is not a new invention. We had catalogue prior, it was just a different medium for doing it. Someone would get the catalogue to their house and then they would order by telephone; or later order through emaiI. I look at online as another modem to deliver a product to a consumer. When it comes to commodities, it’s easy enough push a button and buy it on the internet. But does the internet mean that Nike should not open up more stores? We’ve found the opposite. I worked with Nike in New York, myself and a partner, for the first flagship store in Soho on the corner of Spring Street and Broadway. They are doing two incredible flagships that are costing them mega millions of dollars to build. Why are they doing that in the year 2017 with all the talk of tech and internet sales? Because they realise for a brand, it works arm in arm. People want the experience of a brand. The same way people are talking about restaurants and experience and enjoying that aspect of it, it’s the same thing when it comes to a brand. I want to go to Nike and not just see pictures on the internet. I want to touch the product, I want to try it on I want to interact with it.

Maison Bonnet’s Palais Royal Salon in Paris. Image by JYLSC

LUX: You have done some transformative retail schemes over the years. What are the challenges when you have an area like this that has got great potential but you need to change things? Do you get resistance?
Joe Sitt: There is always resistance. I always say that the secret to knowing when a project is going to be great is the greater amount of resistance. We enjoy both. We like doing things in established high profile tourist destinations as well as cool emerging areas like Wynwood in Miami, Venice Beach in California, and all of these creative markets all over the world that we think need and deserve luxury exposure as well.

Read next: Luxury in the foothills of the Himalayas

LUX: Do you think that monolithic luxury malls as are opening in China and elsewhere, where everything is a luxury brand and nothing else, will change? Will people want more of a mix in there?
Joe Sitt: Yes. That’s boring. Even if it’s great luxury brands it’s not what the consumer wants. As a consumer it gets more and more sophisticated. You see that in their taste they want something that is more eclectic.

LUX: A bit of discovery?
Joe Sitt: Yes. It could be restaurant discoveries, specialty shops, boutiques, perfumeries, candle shops etc. Intermixed with the luxury brands and that’s what creates the most successful environment for a luxury brand.

LUX: What’s the most exciting area of luxury and fashion for you?
Joe Sitt: Menswear is so exciting, much more exciting than womenswear, still very much an untapped market, with brands we’ve referred to today, Thom Sweeney for example, in years to come that could explode. I think that food, F&B, restaurants etc. have tremendous potential. Look at a market like London, if you were here 15 years ago the restaurant scene was horrific. It’s come along light years. I think other markets are going to expand to a much greater degree.

Last, but certainly not least is destination. I think people are remaking what the word ‘resort’ is, as hospitality and a destination. I think people are stating to get really creative. People crave creative.

Florence-born Fawaz Gruosi spent years working with diamond expert Harry Winston in Saudi Arabia, learning the intricacies of the industry from within. In 1993 he launched his own brand, de Grisogono in fine jewellery’s capital, Geneva. Despite his lack of formal training, Gruosi is now widely considered one of the most creatively daring, sales savvy and charming jewellery designers on the modern market. He speaks to Millie Walton about black diamonds, celebrity endorsements and the need for experimentation.

Kate Moss, Fawaz Gruosi and Helena Christensen

Fawaz Gruosi at Eden Roc cocktail party in Cannes

LUX: What do you think makes de Grisogono so successful?
Fawaz Gruosi: De Grisogono is characterised by unique and playful design codes. I like people to feel glamorous in my creations and while I have the greatest respect for them, I am not bound by the conventions of traditional jewellery design; at de Grisogono we like to take risks. When you wear de Grisogono you are making a statement, I think this is what makes us stand out.

LUX: Which markets are most interesting in the luxury world at the moment?
Fawaz Gruosi: We are currently expanding our offering in the Middle East and we are also looking into Asia. In Europe, London remains an important market; our Flagship opened in February 2016 and deeply reflects our brand aesthetics and my personal roots. The plan of the store references the typical Florentine villa – where I grew up – with three distinctive rooms: the Corte, the Grande Sala and the Stanza Del Tempo. The space uses chiaroscuro – playing with light and dark, texture and colour – to add interest to the room and create playful backdrop to the jewellery and watches.

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Milla Jovovich with Fawaz Gruosi at Cannes in 2002

LUX: How do you compete against historic jewellery brands?
Fawaz Gruosi: We do not compete against historic jewellery brands, what we offer is completely different. We are often described as ‘daring’ and ‘trailblazing’ thanks to the fact that my approach does not conform to the rigours of traditional jewellery design. Our clients come to us because they know they will find something different. I made my name by experimenting at a time when the market was tired of traditional pieces that looked more or less the same. My designs are bold and colourful, we mix semi-precious with precious stones to create unexpected, unusual and beautiful pieces.

LUX: How has the fine jewellery world changed since you first entered it?
Fawaz Gruosi: At the beginning, many people were wary of my approach to high jewellery but now people are actively seeking more daring and challenging designs. Conventional design has given way to greater creative freedom.

LUX: You’re famous for pioneering the use of the “black diamond”, what inspired that innovation?
Fawaz Gruosi: I was entranced by the story of the historic Black Orlov, a monumental black diamond. I began to research black diamonds which had been rejected by the industry, largely because they are extremely challenging to cut. I found them intriguing, captivating, and any other gemstone is immediately enhanced by the dark sparkle of black diamonds, creating one of the most striking chiaroscuro effect. In 1996, de Grisogono launched a collection devoted to the black diamond. It was perfectly pitched at a moment when monochrome minimalism was very fashionable, sparking a massive global jewellery style-trend for black diamonds which continues unabated today.

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LUX: What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced as the founder and creative director of a luxury brand?
Fawaz Gruosi: The marriage between business and creative approach – thankfully we seem to have struck the right balance.

LUX: How important are celebrity endorsements for de Grisogono?
Fawaz Gruosi: The glamour of celebrity has greatly helped to shape our identity. The tone was set when the first de Grisogono boutique was opened in Geneva in 1993 at a party attended by Sophia Loren. Since then, we have been lucky to play host to many of the world’s most beautiful and famous women who have attended our parties and worn our jewels – Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Sharon Stone to name a few. Throughout the years, we have built lasting friendships with celebrities. By personally choosing de Grisogono for their red carpet moment, they express their love and passion for exclusive, distinctive, dazzling jewellery. This year during Cannes, we were delighted to see Bella Hadid and Kim Kardashian wearing our jewellery, as well as Jourdan Dunn, Milla Jovovich, Toni Garn and Natasha Poly.

Kim Kardashian and Fawaz Gruosi in Cannes

Fawaz Gruosi with Liz Hurley in Gstaad

LUX: When you look back on your career, what are you most proud of?
Fawaz Gruosi: I am most proud of the de Grisogono family. My closest team members are at my side for 10, 20 years now. We are just like a family and know exactly how each other works and I am proud of each and every one of them.

LUX: What lies ahead for the brand?
Fawaz Gruosi: We continue to expand into new territories and next year will be exciting in terms of some of the high jewellery creations we plan to unveil.

LUX: How do you relax?
Fawaz Gruosi: I have been so busy in the recent years that relaxing is a true luxury! But a perfect way to relax would be spending time with my family, in Porto Cervo or St. Moritz/Gstaad during winter, listening to music or cooking pasta for big groups of friends at home!

degrisogono.com

Francois Paul Journe is the CEO of the eponymous Geneva-based watch company that is the ultimate object of desire for some of the world’s most discerning collectors. For our Luxury Leaders series, he talks to Darius Sanai about how F.P.Journe’s watch business has thrived as an independent, focused on scientific precision, in a world dominated by luxury groups.

FP Journe watchmaker’s atelier

LUX: Why have you succeeded where so many others have failed?
Francois Paul Journe: I believe we have to go back in time to explain. Watchmaking schools do not teach to conceive a watch and being a watchmaker is not synonymous with changing a battery. I was lucky enough, after finishing my watchmaking school, to work with my uncle Michel, renowned antique horology restorer in Paris and learn “on the field” to repair complicated watches, benefit from his experience and discover a world of culture the school does not teach. My uncle was also the curator of the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris, I discovered the most astounding creations by the great French Masters and that obliged me to go further in my research, in order to create watches as beautiful as theirs. But I had to work tirelessly and acquire a real knowledge of the horological history. You do not acquire this kind of experience at school. I became totally passionate and horology became my life.

At the time, there were maybe 15 collectors who were interested to buy authentic horology as the quartz was revolutionising the watch industry and haute horology was not any more in the trend. I had to wait for the taste of clients to revert to real horology until about 1991 when I sold my first wristwatch with tourbillon. I set up my own independent manufacture, to remain independent above all and not have to depend on anyone. From then on, I created a full collection and I never stop selling my watches after that.

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Also, F.P.Journe is the only manufacture in the centre of Geneva, and we are producing 95% of the haute horlogerie components necessary to make our watches, dial and cases included. We also offer a true watchmaking art. Each certified watchmaker makes a specific watch according to his technical sensitivity, and performs all production stages from beginning to end without anyone interfering in the process. A long lost privilege in today’s industrial watchmaking that is more and more segmented.

This is why my horology is different, authentic and respecting the fundamentals of haute horology. Above all, I remain in my own path, innovation, quality and independence. And collectors appreciate our authenticity, transparency and our permanent researches for precision, innovation and exclusivity.

Francois Paul Journe

LUX: How does history inform your brand?
Francois Paul Journe: I respect the history of horology as a musician would study Mozart. If one does not understand the philosophy of the ancient grand watchmakers which only goal was to make watches that were giving the exact time, then you only create gadgets.

LUX: How can you make a product stand out to a consumer who owns everything?
Francois Paul Journe: Our collectors who can have the best money can buy, and above all, exclusive objects know that I am running an independent manufacture with an integrated production of all the components necessary for the making of our watches. It includes the creation and production of all its dial and watch cases which echo our 18 karat rose gold movement in perfect harmony. We are the only manufacture in the world to do so. My goal is continue my pursuit of precision in creating innovative precision chronometers in the respect of the fundamental values of haute horology and I will not disrupt this rule under any circumstances.

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LUX: What is luxury?
Francois Paul Journe: Luxury is a term that has been perjured and used outrageously. It means excellence, know-how and innovation, within a limited production combined with genuine craftsmanship, an exclusive design with a genuine authenticity. It is also a desirable object that is not a necessarily a necessity.

LUX: How do you honour tradition while still innovating?
Francois Paul Journe: You can certainly innovate but you have to respect the fundamentals in high horology that have pertained for over 2 centuries, and there are not many horologists doing so today. I am proud to be one of the only fervent defendants of the fundamental values of haute horlogerie. We have a real manufacture and we continue to produce our watches as if they were scientific objects. That is how watches were considered in the 18th century.

LUX: What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced as the owner and CEO of a luxury brand?
Francois Paul Journe: Independence is in your genes; for me it is not negotiable. Many of the challenges I set for myself would be difficult to achieve if I depended on large financial groups, on a financial side as well as on a creativity side and on a component production side. When I create a new calibre, I can modify components as I please in no time as they are made in our manufacture and I don’t have to depend on a supplier either.

As an independent, we have to demonstrate a strong resistance against big groups and provide a genuine authentic concept and rely on ourselves only. We thus have to be self sufficient and control our production as well as our sales network. That is why we have opened our own network of boutiques which are offering the best possible service to our client, a professional approach of high horology and a perfect knowledge of our collections, without mentioning receiving our clients in a décor at the image of our brand. But creativity is our most powerful weapon to exist and coming out of groups’ shadow.

Big groups sell industrial watches, and we are selling authentic high horology watches. I can only hope a certain public will know how to make the difference and do justice to the genuine values of craftsmanship that we will never cease to perform.

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LUX: Would you define F.P.Journe as a discovery brand?
Francois Paul Journe: I don’t know what you mean exactly by a discovery brand. We can be called a discovery brand in the sense of innovation as we are producing innovative mechanism, or reunite different technical developments another brand have not put together, i.e. the Tourbillon Souverain with remontoir d’égalité and we are the only ones to do so. If you mean a recent brand, yes we are not for the general public but we are one of the best known brands in the world of collectors.

FP Journe watchmaker’s atelier

The entrance to the FP Journe Manufacture in Geneva

LUX: How many watches would you recommend an individual owned?
Francois Paul Journe: I cannot tell a collector how many timepieces he should own, each collector has a collection that correspond to his taste but also its financial means. If he has only a few watches and he is happy with them, it is fine but he is not really a collector. But it is also fine if a passionate collector owns one models of each available in my collection .

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LUX: What innovation are you most proud of?
Francois Paul Journe: The Tourbillon has been my first fascination of course and the resonance phenomenon has been occupying my mind for years in order to produce my Chronomètre à Résonance with 2 mechanical beating in opposition and auto-regulating each-other. But the watch I am most proud of is certainly the sophisticated Sonnerie Souveraine, the most difficult and most accomplished horological creation never realised and the one that has certainly given me the widest challenge in my career. It means six years of research for the Invenit and 10 patents for the Fecit, over 500 components, 4 month of assembling, adjusting and fine tuning, and this without counting the manufacturing of the components entirely produced in our manufacture in the centre of Geneva.

Operating a chiming watch has always been risky. If you do the slightest thing wrong, like setting the time while the chimes are engaged or ringing, you damage precious mechanisms. My challenge was to create a Grande Sonnerie that was safe to use, and what sets it on a higher plane is that it is the only grand strike clock watch safe to use existing today.

LUX: How do you relax?
Francois Paul Journe: I work a lot and I do not have so much free time. Mostly it is dinner with friends, tasting good food and good wine, and enjoying each other’s company. And Formula 1 racing.

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