Our company celebrated its 150th anniversary last year. As we enter 2011, it might be tempting to rest for a while on our laurels and merely savour all the achievements accomplished so far, having established Chopard as one of the world's leading names of the luxury watch and jewellery industry.
After all, our growth in the past decades has been remarkable, with the steady appearance of many entirely new, beautiful and often groundbreaking products testifying to a basic credo of an unceasing search for innovation and excellence. We are just as proud perhaps, that we have remained an independent, family owned and run group – one of the very few operating at our size and level in the industry today.
This very personal involvement has enabled our deeply held commitment to true craftsmanship and excellence to be nurtured, and developed and a long heritage to continue to be built upon and steadily expanded. We naturally cherish that heritage – as a great actor once wisely remarked "You can't drive a car forward without a rearview mirror" – but now we keenly look afresh and invigorated to driving forward to the future.
For this reason, we decided to place the year 2011 under the banner of what is perhaps our greatest asset. Our people. Specifically our craftsmen, both men and women. In our manufactures in Geneva, Fleurier and Pforzheim, Germany, where we design and make virtually everything ourselves, no fewer than 30 different crafts are currently operating within the fields of watch and jewellery making.
In order to celebrate our craftsmen, we will during the year focus in various ways, to highlight key personnel in their specific fields of activity, how each role is important and how they all come together in harmonious role. For these, are often unsung heroes without whom our ceaseless search for perfection, precision, beauty and real value would be unthinkable and unrealisable.