A person working in our field need to have patience, a trained eye for detail and passion. When I joined Phil Schneider, I was set up for a period of 6 weeks training in the American - Hong Kong Manufacture. The Manufacture is like a science lab: the white lab coats, the specific tools for each component of the strap, the organisation, the professionalism, not to mention the tannery where all the beautiful colours come to life on exotic skins.
I was trained by Teddy, one of the best – if not the best – bespoke strap maker. I couldn’t have been more lucky or ecstatic about it. Shadowing someone who pays such attention to detail and worked with such a high standard really set the bar for me.
The technicalities behind making a small article are unreal! We even account for glue adding to the overall thickness of a strap. My lack of mathematical skills was challenged as making a strap with intricate details require thinking ahead and compensating for lengths and widths. I realised the precision that was involved and how important it was to measure twice or thrice and cut once.
Many clients are either watch collectors or have sentimental timepieces that they wish to keep alive with an original aesthetic. Some watches we see go as far back as World War I! Customisation requires making a like-a-glove fit watchstrap. It can be challenging due to the client’s wrist size. In the Hong Kong Office, we consult a client to collect his or her requirements, bouncing ideas of one another, and then create a technical drawing to make sure we understood his/her vision. We’ll even bring the client’s vision to life with a tangible prototype. Having carried this out, we can make adjustments and tweak the design as necessary, reassuring both parties that the final product will be floorless and go even beyond the clients’ expectations.
We received an order from a Saudi customer to build him a set of suitcases for his private aircraft. The suitcases had a special requirement profile that they should be ultra light, luxurious and elegant. We were given an extremely short time frame for the suitcase development project. We had just 3 months to build from a basic idea of an ultra luxurious suitcase to the finished prototype. The buyer was to consist of the following 5 materials:
• 18 K gold
• green emeralds
• Titanium for the case handle
• Carbon for the frame
• Finest Pororsus leather
These suitcases were a gift for his 4 wife, who first met him in a botanical garden in London. The path led the gentleman from Saudi Arabia and the lady from Sweden together over an extraordinary and beautiful yellow butterfly, which hovered around them in a figure eight trajectory. It was clear to him then that the two of you must be destined for eternity.
He remembered his student days as a mathematician:
The mathematician John Wallis is considered one of the pioneers of infinitesimal calculus. In his work, he further developed, among other things, Bonaventura Cavalieri's principle of the indivisible. Right at the beginning of his work on conic sections De sectionibus conicis, written in Latin in 1655, he writes:
"Suppono in limine (juxta Bonaventuræ Cavallerii Geometriam Indiviſibilium) Planum quodlibet quaſi ex infinitis lineis parallelis conflari: Vel potius (quod ego mallem) ex infinitis Parallelogrammis æque altis; quorum quidem ſingulorum altitudo fit totius altitudinis , ſive aliquota pars infinite para; (eſto enim nota \ infty numeri infiniti;) adeoque omnium ſimul altitudo æqualis altitunini figuræ."
"To begin with, I suppose (according to Bonaventura Cavalieri's Geometry of Indivisibles) that every flat figure is composed of an infinite number of parallel lines: or rather (which I prefer) of an infinite number of parallelograms of the same height; each one of these heights making up the whole height, or even an infinitely small proportion, (to this denote an infinitely large number;) therefore the height of all taken together is equal to the height of the figure."
- John Wallis: De sectionibus conicis, 1655
ingredients of love / ingredientia amoris / 愛の成分/ составляющие любви / ingredienti dell'amore / 爱的成分
The gold was used to create a delicately crafted butterfly set with the finest green emeralds. The butterfly was the symbol of their first encounter and the deep love they share for each other. The gold symbolised his wife's warm aura and the vivid deep green emeralds represented the beautiful and mysterious eyes of his wife.
Especially special solutions for customers who can theoretically buy everything and still can't find anything extraordinary come to us, so we take these customers on a journey back to classic craftsmanship and convey the values of luxury, so that they get an absolutely unique piece made only from the best available materials and the best leather masters and goldsmiths in the world. Arguably, this involves one of the last mysteries of creating something beautiful and unique out of nothing.
Sincerely yours
Phil Schneider
(CEO & FOUNDER)
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.
