The new boss of IWC talks to QP about Instagram, in-house and Ingenieurs
By Timothy Barber

QP: You began your career as an architect. What kind of things were you doing"
Chris Grainger-Herr: My career started here in London, actually. My background is in interior design – I actually wanted to be in set design originally, and I worked in fashion for a bit. But once I started on interior design I did a placement here 2001 that led me to retail design. I worked on a men?s accessories store on Sloane Street and that was what got me into the ?hard luxury? side of things.
When I went back to Switzerland, I got a job in Zurich and I started to work on high end office and hospitality projects. About a year into that we got a phone call from Richemont saying  ?do you want to design a museum for IWC"?.  My dad was a watch man and I had loved IWC forever so I jumped at the opportunity, and that?s where it all started. IWC’s Museum
QP: How does that background influence how you approach things today"
CGH: I think in terms of an architect, which basically is taking a conceptual idea and translating it into a rather complex system of things that all work perfectly together. It?s quite a logical progression.  I also have experience from a brand positioning angle because back in 2009 we worked on the repositioning of Roger Dubuis and Baume & Mercier and a few other brands in the group, so, I tend to look at these brands holistically and say, ?...