CHOPARD L.U.C 1860 X THE RAKE & REVOLUTION
It is almost impossible to fully express how great a revelation Chopard’s L.U.C first automatic Calibre 1.96 was in the context of the mid-1990s. While Swiss mechanical watchmaking had pulled itself back from the brink of disaster represented by the Quartz Crisis, there was still an overall timidity related to movement innovation. The rationale was understandable. After all, it was just barely a decade since the very future of Swiss watchmaking precariously teetered on the whim of a consumer seduced by inexpensive timepieces with soulless electronic heartbeats.
From a sunny rooftop overlooking the procession to the red carpet at the Cannes film festival, Karl-Friedrich Scheufele said: “At the time, the most pervasively used chronograph movement was the Lemania 2310. While I love this movement, this is a calibre that dates back to the 1940s. It was clear that with very few exceptions the industry was content to use the existing movements that had been around for decades.”
But that wasn’t good enough for Scheufele: “I knew that Chopard had long been considered a jewellery brand. But we were never seen as a serious horological maison. We were not a manufacture. And when I took the decision to start making our own movements, I wanted to create a calibre that reflected all the technical advances of our era, and not repeat something that had already been done half a century before.”
It is common knowledge that Scheufele contacted Michel Parmigiani to consult on the movement’s design, but the requirements were very much based
