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VARTKESS KNADJIAN is the CEO of one of the world’s most unique watch brands. Forging together the precision of Swiss watchmaking with the quality of high precision diamond polishing, BACKES & STRAUSS have created a collection that looks to the past for inspiration and pushes the boundaries of the present. The Montebury met VARTKESS KNADJIAN at the BACKES & STRAUSS headquarters in London to discuss hearts, arrows, squares and lots of diamonds.
VARTKESS KNADJIAN /CEO of BACKES & STRAUSS
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The Montebury: Where do you come from and how did you get into the industry?
Vartkess Knadjian — I was born in Ethiopia and at that time, my father was in the watch business. He was a Swiss-trained watchmaker and he was the official horologer to the emperor of Ethiopia, who at that time was Haile Selassie. I was really born into watches, tick-tock was something I heard from a very young age. I was sent to school in England at the age of twelve and when I was about to graduate to go back to Ethiopia and get involved with my dad’s business, there was a slight problem with revolution in Ethiopia. Our properties and business was nationalized, so I finished my education and joined Backes & Strauss as a young trainee. Backes & Strauss is the world’s oldest diamond company and was formed in 1789. I joined them in 1976 and in 2003 I had the possibility to lead a management buyout of the company. After a few years I was able to launch the brand Backes & Strauss, which brings together my two passions - watchmaking and diamonds. Backes & Strauss combines the two skills of high precision Swiss watchmaking and high precision diamond polishing, in one product.
What were some of the changes that needed to be made to the brand once you led the buyout?
VK — It is very interesting, because when I look back on history (I am a very keen historian myself), Backes & Strauss was founded in Germany in 1789 by Georg Carl Backes and over the two hundred year history, the company has in a way reinvented itself to meet current needs and requirements. During most of the nineteenth century, they were very large manufacturers of jewellery that was produced in France, Germany and in London. This jewellery was distributed throughout Europe and throughout the world but as diamonds were discovered in South Africa and became more accessible, the Strauss family who were by then in the driving seat, decided to focus on diamond polishing and distribution. By the end of the nineteenth century their whole emphasis went towards diamonds and the jewellery took a back seat. Throughout most of the twentieth century, Backes & Strauss was a diamond company. I came along in 2003 when I bought the company, with the idea that I had to leverage on the tradition, history and the name of the company. I thought that the most natural thing for us would be to go into jewellery. At the initial stage, I wanted to launch a watch brand, which I realised I could not do on my own. So I selected a partner in Franck Muller to give credibility to our horological side. A story emerged of the meeting of the masters. Franck Muller are currently the most innovative watchmakers in the Swiss industry. They have the most complicated watches one can imagine and they call themselves masters of complication. So, after a number of years of working out concepts and building the brand, we launched a product in November 2006 in London. We are very proud of our unparalleled knowledge in diamonds and in fact all of the diamonds we use are ideal cut diamonds, which means that these are diamonds cut to absolute perfection. Every angle and facet has to be aligned and be perfectly symmetrical, so much so that when you look at it with a viewer you can see this effect of hearts and arrows. If one facet is not totally aligned, you do not have the effect. This means that when you are polishing you need very high precision work, you lose a lot more weight from the rough diamond and it takes twice as long, but considering our heritage, we felt that we needed to offer the best.
Why decide to base the brand in London?
VK — It was a combination of factors. Firstly, London has been a presence for Backes & Strauss as a company for over two hundred years and secondly we felt London was such a global city, that if we were working with a global brand we would rather be in London than in a small village in Switzerland. Thirdly, we wanted to celebrate London’s rich history in watchmaking. What is today seen as Swiss inventions were really invented in the UK in the nineteenth century, but on clocks. The Swiss were able to scale it down and put it on the wrist. To give the brand a British feel, we then worked with our designers. I was given a team of designers from Franck Muller who would normally be working in Geneva looking at the alps and cows etc. I brought them to London and we spent a lot of time here just to get the feel of London. |
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I have been in and out of London for thirty five years, so I sadly don’t notice a lot of things but when you come from outside, you notice a lot of beautiful things in London. One of the things that the designers came away with was the amazing architecture of John Nash. It is such an influence around central London. Regent Street is a gem. The first design they came up with was what we call our Regent, the oval-shaped watch. When I passed this around to my partners, they said that oval watches don’t really work. People in the industry somehow seem to have preconceived ideas but I wanted to give it a chance, to maybe start something new. We launched the Regent which is oval-shaped, but also has a lot of circular movements in it. I am glad to say that since we launched the Regent several other well-known companies have brought oval-shaped watches into their repertoire.
What makes Backes & Strauss unique in the marketplace?
VK — I think that from our background, our historical perspective and our partnership with a young, innovate, highly-successful brand like Franck Muller, it shows that what we are doing is different. This makes people look at us and say ‘they must be something special’. The whole design of the watch is done in such a way that it reminds you of our origins. I initially wanted all of our watches to have a diamond, and so the most natural place for it was on the crown. When I went to the engineers, they designed a crown where the diamond would be set upside down. I said that we cannot do that and I wanted to set the diamond the other way up and have a bigger crown. They told me that a big crown ‘does not work’ but then the designers came up with a way to make the crown look like the pavilion of a diamond. I wanted the glass to be initially faceted like a diamond, but when we set it on our dials it looked cheap, so we got the designers to work on a dial which looks like a faceted dial and the numerals are individually polished and set into the dial. So, when you see it, it is not printed or painted on, but polished and set into the dial. |
“ Every angle and facet has to be aligned and be perfectly symmetrical, so much so that when you look at it with a viewer you can see this effect of hearts and arrows ”
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What inspires the collection?
VK — One thing that London has is its lovely little squares. You don’t see this in other cities as much as in London. The designers were fascinated by the squares, and so they came up with the Berkeley, which celebrates Berkeley square. Rushing between Regent Street and Berkeley Square, we always used to pass Piccadilly, so when we came up with the third model, we christened it Piccadilly. The watch cases have not so much been designed just to house the watch, but to showcase the diamonds. We are working with white gold and rose gold for the casing, and have various configurations of diamond settings. At our high end, we push barriers as to what one can do with diamonds. One of our tour de force’s is the Prince Regent. The Prince Regent dial is set with tapered baguette diamonds each individually polished and then set invisibly to the dial. You have three hundred and eighty stones set into the dial. It has taken three of my top skilled workers four and a half months to put that dial together. This is why sometimes in this day and age, where we look at electronic equipment, they are all printed chips. What we are doing on the watch side is all mechanical and on the diamond side, people do not realise that the smallest diamonds are polished by human beings sitting at a wheel. A lot of people have this image that diamonds come out of a machine. Craft and skills are things that one has to preserve, especially in our fast-changing world. |
Society is starting to look unfavourably on those who overtly show their wealth. How does a company like Backes & Strauss survive?
VK — I trained as an economist and when the crisis came on, I buckled down and realised that we needed to do some serious thinking. What I thought and what I have seen after a year is the complete opposite. High end and special pieces have done extremely well. People have become more discerning and are looking for quality, for things that are not bling. They want handmade, top-quality items to buy. We have positioned ourselves in such a way as to offer these people something different. I am pleasantly surprised by the reaction. I think that it is very much a case of instead of someone going to buy five watches, they will buy one. They will do their research and will want to buy something special. We have a limited production and we are not everywhere because we don’t want to be. One of the mistakes that the modern luxury business has made in the past few years is that it has made itself too available to far too many people. That is how you devalue your product. When I started this company, I wanted to position ourselves in the ultra-luxury bracket. People who have the money and want to buy nice things are still out there. They were perhaps least effected. The frivolous spenders have had to cut back. True luxury has to be discovered and there has to be some excitement in discovering something special that not everyone is wearing.
What goes into making a Backes & Strauss watch?
VK — We are currently in Harrods, Asprey and Selfridges, where we sell our regular high-end models. If a customer wants something specific, we have a bespoke watch service, which can take anything from six months to a year. The manufacturing is all done in Switzerland in the Franck Muller Watchland complex. All of our manufacturing is in-house, which is one major advantage of Franck Muller, because they do not depend on contracting out anything. We use all of the Franck Muller movements, which are both automatic and chronograph movements created by Franck Muller. On a regular model, it takes eight weeks to create.
What makes the watch different from any other?
VK — In terms of appearance, feel, and the combination of horological complications. The first complication we introduced was in a moon phase watch with a big date, which commemorates Thomas Harriot, an Englishman who was the first in the world to sketch the moon face using a telescope. As years go on, we will introduce more complications into our collection. We are working on a tourbillon which hopefully will be ready in 2011 and then we are using innovative settings for diamonds. There is a watch that will be launched in Japan early next year and will incorporate lime-coloured diamonds. It has taken me over two years to collect lime-coloured diamonds, which will be absolutely fabulous. Although, this will not be a production piece.
Where in the world is Backes & Strauss most successful?
VK — We have come out and said that the world is our market. |
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“ People do not realise that the smallest diamonds are polished by human beings sitting at a wheel ”
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In the past two years, I am delighted to say that we are in twenty different countries and about forty doors. I have just come back from Australia, because we had a launch in Sydney with one of the leading diamond showrooms - Fairfax & Roberts. I would say that as London was the first place we started in, London is number one in terms of sales. The Middle East has been very successful, we are in all of the major cities such as Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Kuwait etc. Japan has been an unparalleled success because it is a very difficult market. The Japanese love the story and the product and they adore the ideal cut diamonds. We have not as yet launched in the Far East or Russia, but that will be happening in 2010. We launched in America, but this last year has been slightly difficult. We are also in places such as greece and Italy. Two years is still too short to analyse the numbers, but it is very encouraging for a new brand.
For you personally, what defines the perfect watch?
VK — The perfect watch is something that you put on your wrist, which gives you that feeling of owning something very special. It has been perfectly crafted and feels perfectly comfortable sitting on your wrist and draws the admiration of your friends and colleagues. It is beyond telling the time.
What can we expect to see in the future from Backes & Strauss?
VK — We are working on a line of high end jewellery which should be out before the end of 2009, or the beginning of 2010. We gave several high-profile designers in the UK the opportunity to design a beautiful range of jewellery on three levels. One is unique pieces, our couture collection and the second one is drawing on the Victorian collection that we have in our catalogues but updating it for current trends. The third one is not aping the watch, but taking parts of the watch and working it through into wearable jewellery. This will initially entirely be women’s jewellery. People question me about diamonds, watches and men. When I am on official duty, I feel that I have to wear a diamond watch. Initially I felt uncomfortable but now I quite like wearing it. It draws people’s attention but doesn’t look odd. More and more that is going to come in and you see people in the Middle and Far East wearing diamond watches, and why not?
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“ The perfect watch is something that you put on your wrist, which gives you that feeling of owning something very special”
From left: The Piccadilly in rose gold, The Berkeley in rose gold, The Berkeley in rose gold set with 44 Hearts & Arrows diamonds in one row, 9 carats, by BACKES & STRAUSS. |
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— January 2010
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