Some young girls play with dolls or dinosaur figurines; Caroline Gruosi-Scheufele played with gemstones. Having grown up in the family that owns the jeweler and watchmaker Chopard, Gruosi-Scheufele, 47, remembers spending every day after kindergarten playing in the corridors of the workshop in Geneva, which at the time specialized in ladies' diamond watches. "Sometimes my mother would let me count the diamonds," she recalled.
Today, as copresident of Chopard, Gruosi-Scheufele spends her days working to make sure other people take as much pleasure in jewelry and gems as she does, says International Herald Tribune in an article posted on www.diamonds.net and describing Chopard’s current developments. Like most other luxury brands, Chopard is feeling the impact of the economic crisis. During a recent visit in Singapore to open a new flagship store, Gruosi-Scheufele acknowledged that business was down, but "not disastrously" and not across the board. "We can feel it in the $25,000 to $50,000 bracket, but the high end of the market, the over $100,000 a piece, is holding better,'' she said.
"There is still a lot of money out there, and a lot of people are looking to buy something they can hold in their hands," she added. "Diamonds and top colored stones have not gone down." While the family-held company does not release financial data, Gruosi-Scheufele said that Chopard, which started as a watchmaker in 1860 and turned to jewelry only in 1976, now gets about 60 percent of its revenue from watches and 40 percent from jewelry. There is also a small division, started five years ago, that sells sunglasses and handbags.
Gruosi-Scheufele said the new lines, while growing, would remain a small part of Chopard. "We don't want to make the mistake of accessories taking over the core business," she said. Analysts concur. "Chopard is an excellent brand and, provided it is handled carefully — for example, not going out and giving licenses here and there — a move away from watches and jewelry could be successful," said Jon Cox of Kepler Capital Markets in Zurich. "Like the industry, it will be under pressure, but I expect it to emerge from the downturn well."
Gruosi-Scheufele was only two years old when her father, who came from a family of German goldsmiths and watchmakers, bought the company from Paul-André Chopard, the grandson of Chopard's founder. When she was 17, she sketched what would become the first piece of Chopard jewelry: a clown pendant with loose diamonds inside the stomach using the company's patented "Happy Diamond" technique, which allows diamonds to move freely on a watch dial. Her father had the clown made as a surprise birthday present for her and, evidently impressed by the result, decided to manufacture more.
That same year, Gruosi-Scheufele joined the family business, while continuing to study gemology. She remembers that on a business trip to the Philippines — her first representing the family — company executives thought she looked far too young to be a vice president and whisked her away to be made up to look older before she met customers.
"I also remember seeing the private jewelry collection of Mrs. Imelda Marcos," she recalled. "She really had the most incredible collection, emeralds as big as eggs. I couldn't believe my eyes. I think that's when I got the passion for colored stones." Sharing the role of company president with her elder brother, Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, Gruosi-Scheufele is responsible for Chopard's high-end jewelry, as well as the design of jewels and ladies' timepieces, and the recently added accessories divisions. Her brother is in charge of the men's watch division, manufacturing and business management.
At her suggestion, Chopard opened its first boutique, in Vienna in 1986 — "I strongly believed it would help with the branding" — and today has 115 boutiques around the world, with 10 more planned for this year. In 1997, while opening a boutique in Cannes, Gruosi-Scheufele pushed the branding concept a step further by becoming the official sponsor of watches and jewelry for the Cannes Film Festival. The tie-in — reinforced by the Chopard gems that adorn Cannes-nominated actresses on the red carpet — has helped catapult the company's name internationally. Today the company is associated with a full calendar of high-society events, including the Mille Miglia, a vintage car race in Italy, and the Oscars.
Even though the economic crisis is causing some companies, and their customers, to lower their profiles, Gruosi-Scheufele said that she believed that it was more important than ever for Chopard to keep up. "We should not stop promoting the company, or stop supporting the major events we're involved with," she said. "Strong companies will survive and come out even stronger."
