A NEW STEEL
Chopard worked with Voestalpine in Austria, its historical
metal-maker, to conceive a new type of steel. It took
them four years to create it, and the result is Lucent
Steel A223, a metal as rich and complex as gold. This new
alloy features three unique properties: its hypoallergenic
composition makes it comparable to surgical steel, it is
50 per cent more resistant to abrasion and, because it
has the lowest degree of impurities, it is the shiniest steel
ever created.
On the watch, this exclusive, light-refl ecting Lucent
Steel A223 is reminiscent of glaciers and the rocks of
the Alps as the textures of the watch alternates between
polished and matte fi nishes.
The heartbeat of the watch is a Chopard chronometer-
certifi ed movement: “As the Alpine Eagle is of a masculine
orientation, we said it has to be chronometer-certifi ed
by the Swiss Offi cial Chronometer Control. The small
frequency is 3.5 hertz, the larger one is 4 hertz. The
smaller one was a bit more complicated to be certifi ed, so
it took a little while to achieve that,” says Karl-Friedrich.
The automatic winding was developed and created in
Chopard’s in-house watchmaking workshops, as with all
the components including its case and bracelet in both
Lucent Steel A223 and gold.
“We have no intention to produce tens of thousands,
because after all, we produce about 70,000 watches a
year. Our capacity of production is not endless. Even
if the demand exceeds our supply, we won’t be able to
respond very quickly,” says Karl-Friedrich. What about
the Alpine Eagle? “For the moment, we will launch about
3,000 Alpine Eagles all in all for the fi rst year. It’s not a
huge amount.”
DESIGN AS LEGACY
It is rare for the co-president of any watchmaking company
to personally create a watch from scratch, much less a
timepiece that was created jointly by three generations
of the family.
When asked if it was easier or strategic to pull from the
archives rather than invent something completely new,
Karl-Friedrich replies, “I won’t qualify it as necessarily
easier. It’s probably almost as hard to reinterpret something
in a meaningful way than it is to start from scratch. The
only advantage we had, as we started with the St Moritz, is
the history behind it, which we can bring to the table. But
a reinterpretation or the renaissance of a successful watch
is not an easy thing to do. We asked ourselves hundreds of
questions along the way.”
To close the interview, we ask a personal question to
the youngest member of this trio: name a trait of your
father and grandfather that you appreciate, especially now
that you have worked on a project of this scale with them?
Karl-Fritz thinks carefully and says in jest, “Maybe I won’t
be getting any dessert tonight! But I have to say my dad’s
eye for detail. Sometimes I would look at a prototype and
I think it’s ready to go, let’s make it! And he would see the
smallest detail that I would have completely missed, and
say, ‘No, no, this has to be changed’.
“Of course, for my grandfather, it would be perseverance.
If my father said no, and he said no too, I really don’t know
what I would have done. My grandfather really pushed to
make the Alpine Eagle happen.”Karl-Fritz Scheufele (pictured above left) fi rst pitched the
Alpine Eagle project to his father (above right) and later, his
grandfather (centre), four years ago; sketches of the Alpine Eagle
(far right), which has an integrated case and bracelet; the 36mm
Alpine Eagle in Lucent Steel A223 and ethical rose gold features
a mother-of-pearl dial and diamond-set bezel (right)
singapore tatler. october 2019 125