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Caring for the community: Why doing business with heart matters to these two companies
For Cortina Watch and Chopard, caring for people is just as important as achieving commercial targets
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Chopard owner, Mr Karl Scheufele III (left) and his wife, Karin, with Cortina Watch founder Anthony Lim (right).
PHOTO: CORTINA WATCH
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Profitability is an integral part of business but achieving commercial success with heart is not what drives many companies. Cortina Watch and one of its closest business partners, Chopard, are two of the rare few, with social responsibility being a core tenet.
While the Swiss jeweller-watchmaker has focused on sustainably sourced materials for its luxury products, an ambitious long-term commitment undertaken since 2013, Cortina Watch has constantly supported social projects in Singapore to help the disadvantaged. These include The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund, National Kidney Foundation, as well as Yellow Ribbon Singapore, amongst many others.
As Mr Raymond Lim, CEO of Cortina’s parent company, Cortina Holdings, explains: “Cortina is a family-founded business, and Chopard is a family-owned and -run business. In that sense, we share many values and similarities in how we work together with our partners to achieve long-term success.”
For the greater good
Even when celebrating personal success and milestones, giving back to the community is never far from the minds of the two brands. Over the years, Cortina Watch has helped to raise funds for the Singapore Heart Foundation (SHF) to provide access to high quality healthcare for Singaporeans in need of cardiac rehabilitation.
In 2022, it made a donation to the SHF-Cortina Watch Heart Wellness Centre at Bukit Gombak Sports Centre with the hope to help provide more affordable treatment, promote active engagement in rehabilitation programs and enhance access to cardiac care for heart patients, who may be less mobile and are also at risk of a recurrent cardiac incident.
On the occasion of Cortina’s 40th anniversary, the retailer worked with Chopard to create a special version of the ultra-thin L.U.C Skeletec timepiece, with a skeletonised dial and sapphire caseback that revealed the inner workings of the automatic calibre 96.17-S movement.
This year, as Cortina Watch celebrates its 50th anniversary, it has created a new commemorative timepiece with Chopard, with proceeds going to the SHF.
The Happy Hearts Auto 36mm 50th Anniversary edition, which will be limited to only 50 pieces, is a stainless steel watch that features five solitaire diamonds and a carnelian heart floating on the dial, along with a ruby set on the crown.
Hand in hand
Besides the Happy Hearts Auto 36mm 50th Anniversary edition, Cortina Watch and Chopard have also collaborated on the Happy Moon timepiece, a diamond-set, precious metal version of the Happy Sport watch with a moon-phase complication.
It features a stone dial printed with the constellations of the night sky. Each is limited to just five pieces, in green or blue aventurine and red mother-of-pearl dial. Six solitaire floating diamonds soar above the dial, twinkling like stars in the sky.
The meeting of great minds
In the early 1970s, when Mr Anthony Lim was setting up Cortina Watch, a German gentleman by the name of Mr Karl Scheufele III was starting to revitalise a renowned independent Swiss watchmaking brand that he had acquired in 1963.
The small but highly regarded company, Chopard, was known for its ultra-thin, high-precision pocket watches and had been run by its namesake family for three generations.
With Mr Scheufele strengthening Chopard’s jewellery and watchmaking production and achieving success with the now-iconic Happy Diamonds model in 1976, Mr Lim was duly impressed and decided to partner Chopard to retail its watches in Southeast Asia.
Over the next few decades, as Cortina Watch embarked on growing its retail presence in Singapore and Malaysia, it continued to promote Chopard’s new timepieces in-store, including the sporty Mille Miglia collection launched in 1988.
When Cortina opened its biggest flagship store at Raffles City Shopping Centre in 1992, it made sure Chopard had an important presence within the store. More recently, Chopard presented its latest designs at the Cortina boutique in Capitol Singapore.
In a congratulatory message to Cortina Watch, Mr Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, co-president of Chopard, says: “50 years is an incredible milestone. It shows resilience and creativity in everything you have achieved and built with passion over these five decades. We’re delighted to be your partners, and we hope the next generation will continue to work together as we have for so long.“
Mr Jeremy Lim, CEO of Cortina Watch, adds, “Chopard is an incredible jeweller and watchmaker that not only has incredible expertise, but also possesses strong ethical responsibility.
“They are the first luxury brand to fully commit to the use of ethical gold, and products such as the Alpine Eagle also support the Alpine Eagle Foundation, of which Karl-Friedrich Scheufele is a founding member. It’s an honour for us to be able to work with companies of vision like Chopard, and we hope this relationship will continue to prosper in the decades to come.”
Click here for more stories related to Cortina Watch's golden jubilee. To see tributes from its brand partners, go to the Cortina Watch 50th anniversary commemorative website.
