© Sébastien Agnetti
Back to the beginning: At over 70 years old, Jean-Claude Biver, together with his son Pierre (left in the picture), started all over again.
March 1, 2024
Bernd Skupin
He is considered one of the greatest geniuses in the watch industry. In the cosmos of horology, the man is a living legend. Now, the former head of the watch division of the luxury conglomerate LVMH has launched his own brand.
Find a DoctorSearch the network for suitable specialists and contact them directly
Anyone who wants to know what passion for a project, a profession that is a calling, truly sounds like should talk to Jean-Claude Biver. Enthusiasm, even inspiration, radiates from every sentence, every syllable when he speaks about watches.
He has revived or led to today's greatness two significant brands: Blancpain and Hublot. In the end, he was head of the entire watch division of the luxury group LVMH. The end? Not at all. Because after a short retirement, Biver has now launched, together with his son Pierre, his own brand in the absolute top segment. At the end of September last year, the first models appeared under the name Biver.
A few years ago, we met for an interview once before. That was at 7 in the morning. You had already been conferencing with partners in Asia for several hours. What did you do this morning?
At five o'clock I went for a walk for an hour and a half – well, walked quickly. I am now over 70, and you have to adapt to your age. At first, I didn’t even know you had to adapt. But now I understand, now I do it right.
And does that include starting again, this time with your own watch brand?
The hand of a clock goes from twelve to one, to two, to three... – then at some point it comes back to twelve. And in my seventies, I think there's a small part left for me, like a tenth, that I have to complete. It brings me joy, it makes me happy, it allows me to live my passion.
And I do this together with my son, to whom I can pass something on. These are all reasons that have led me to do something again in the last five or eight or ten years of my life. And isn't that the greatest privilege one can have, when the last years are exciting and full of passion and emotions and you also have the joy of passing something on?
"Isn't that the greatest privilege one can have when the final years are exciting and full of passion and emotions?"
Have you ever done anything without passion?
Without passion, I'd rather stay in bed. Why should I get up? If I have no passion, then I prefer to continue dreaming, sleeping.
The watches will cost between 70,000 and about 600,000 euros according to your specifications.
Because they make the invisible visible. Everything that is not seen in a watch was neglected in the streamlining of production, in the effort to keep production costs low, in the 50s, 60s, 70s.
Why should you polish the head of a screw if no one sees it? Why should you decorate the back of a dial? Why? You don't see them. But if I want to take care of the soul of a watch, then I first have to clear the way for the soul to come out of the watch. And this soul can only come out if it is connected with eternity.
And to connect a piece with eternity, I absolutely have to take care of the invisible and not just the visible. Any idiot can take care of the visible. But taking care of the invisible, mastering the invisible, decorating the invisible, that's called art.
© Sébastien Agnetti
"As long as I live, I cannot reach eternity, but I can come very close to it," said Jean-Claude River.
Do you always encounter understanding with such ideas?Half of the people will say it's unimportant, and the other half will say, no, it's important. I claim that it's the most important thing of all for me. Seeing with the eyes is unimportant. The most important thing is the soul. You have to feel it, it has to be there, but you never see it.
It is indeed somewhat spiritual and very personal, but it springs from my mentality, almost belonging to my religion. And that's the big difference with our watches: mastering the invisible, mastering the soul of the watch. Not everyone can understand it, and not everyone can afford it.
"Only when I approach perfection do I also come close to eternity."
And can you now realize this demand for the first time without compromise?Yes, because I own the company. In a large corporation, you sometimes have difficulty saying that polishing an invisible screw takes 47 minutes. Then an accountant asks you, why are we spending 47 minutes 85 times for the 85 screws we have? We don't need to polish these screws, or it's enough if we take five minutes per screw. Why do you write 47 minutes here? And now I say, because it belongs to me: Yes, I want that!
47 minutes, because that's the time I need to reach perfection, and only when I get close to perfection do I also get close to eternity. This is my way of approaching eternity, because as long as I live, I cannot reach eternity, but I can get very close. This proximity is perfection.
A kind of perfection is also found in highly complex industrially produced objects, like an iPhone. Still, hardly anyone would attribute a soul to them. Is the difference that watches like yours are assembled by humans, composed by watchmakers, so to speak?
That's exactly what fascinates me. I once called it the hands of the miracle. My watchmakers have fingers that can create miracles – like a pianist, like Mozart. Through his fingers something brilliant came into the world, these harmonies! A miracle in music or drawing, no matter.
I also have fingers, but nothing comes out. They are just fingers that allow me to lift my coffee cup. That's the big difference between Mozart's fingers and mine. And that's also the difference to my watchmakers' fingers. They have hands of the miracle, created thanks to their fingers. They are what counts, they are worth money, millions.
"My watchmakers have fingers that can create miracles – like a pianist, like Mozart."
Even if you are not a watchmaker yourself, your first year of work your then boss put you with the watchmakers to learn about their mentality and world. How important was that?
It was the most important thing ever. That was the time when passion suddenly felt at home with me. Most watchmakers come from a valley, the Vallée de Joux. If I were to make a list of the brands based there now – how many CEOs and heads of these brands live in the Vallée? Almost none.
They all live in cities like Geneva and come in by car in the morning. That’s not bad, but as long as you don’t live there, as long as you don’t know how the birds sing, how the grass turns green, how the cheese is made, if you don’t experience all of that yourself, then you’re always an outsider and not a local. That’s the big difference between me and many others, who are also good, real professionals. But they don’t live there. And if you don’t live there, then something is missing. And for me, nothing was missing because I lived there.
They say you even make your own cheese?Yes, of course, my cheese is like my passport. I always travel with my cheese and bring it to friends. That gives me joy. That’s why I don’t sell it, no matter how much we produce. I don’t sell a gram because it’s mainly made because of my passion. And you can’t sell a passion.
How reishi, cordyceps, and other medicinal mushrooms can ease the pollen season
Marianne Waldenfels
_1500x2250_150_RGB-2.webp)
