This article was originally published in the July/August 2022 Issue of the WatchTime print magazine.

On one hand, Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, the son of German entrepreneurs Karl and Karin Scheufele who acquired Chopard with five employees in 1963, could easily be described as a visionary. Since the 1980s, ?KFS? has been the driving force behind the maison?s mission to become a true watch manufacture (at a time when a large part of the Swiss luxury brands still relied on external movements). Thanks to his determination, Chopard quickly evolved into an independent haute horlogerie heavyweight, right at the time when mechanical watchmaking became destined for a renaissance. ?At first it wasn?t just about becoming a manufacture; that was the second step,? he said. ?It was mainly about creating our own automatic movement [the 1.96 that was named after the year it was completed]. This made me realize that we would have to reorganize everything. We did look at a couple of smaller manufactures, but ultimately decided to start from scratch, with a blank sheet of paper, and a lot of verve.?
Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, and obviously also his sister Caroline who is Chopard?s co-president and artistic director, could also be described as pioneers. Chopard started to focus on sustainability and corporate governance (e.g., by implementing an ethical gold policy across all watches and jewelry at the family-owned manufacturer), years ahead of the r...