The Man Who Loved Artists

"I am not going to pretend to you that Cartier's patronage of the arts has not been good for business, because it has. I like to think that it has conferred upon us more depth, more soul - and that in turn is something which goes down well in terms of our own image and identity."

The truth - but certainly not the whole truth. For what Cartier International’s 56 year-old CEO Alain Dominique Perrin fails to include in one of his typically forthright and robust statements is the fact that the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Arts, which he created in 1984, also happens to have had an extremely positive effect within the world of the arts – its massive 2 million dollar annual sponsorship unrivalled and unsurpassed in the whole of France.

For the bearded and bespectacled Perrin, the idea of the Cartier Foundation was to present the work of contemporary artists from all over the world -from painting to photography, from sculpture to design, from video to fashion. And in so doing to help support and raise public awareness of the arts. As an instrument that artists can use to create and exhibit their work, and as a meeting-place for all forms of artistic expression, the Cartier Foundation provides one of the most original forms of corporate philanthropy in Europe. But it took Perrin almost exactly a decade since the foundation was established back in the fall of 1984 to find an appropriate permanent home. In the event it was a modernist palace designed by the architect Jean Nouvel, a fabulously evocative glass and steel construction situated in the heart of Montparnasse and now accepted as an important part of Parisian landscape, a touchstone in the French capital's city planning.

"I am happy to pay tribute to the Cartier Foundation," says French contemporary artist Jean-Pierre Raynaud, whose modernistic sculptures have been commissioned and exhibited thanks to Perrin's funding. "Ever since it was created the foundation has sought to place art at the heart of the preoccupations of the modern world and to open its doors to as broad a public as possible."

It's all a far cry from cigarette lighters, n'est ce pas? Having graduated from the Ecole des Dirigeants et Créateurs d’Entreprises – a leading Paris Business School which now boasts the slogan ‘one student, one job’, Perrin entered Briquet Cartier S.A. as a company sales rep. The son of a Nantes entrepreneur, it had been his intention to stay for a just a few years before moving on to start up a business of his own. Cartier looked very different when Perrin arrived back in 1969 - a company consisting of just three major boutiques in Paris, London and New York, with the greater part of turnover coming from private commissions. Perrin wasted no time before introducing a range of stylish oval-shaped lighters - the company's first attempt at diversifying beyond jewelry, and a jolly successful attempt it was too. For the following year saw his appointment as managing director of the entire lighter division, before going on to be put in charge of a new project to develop a less expensive collection of watches called Les Must de Cartier – retailing, for the most part, for less than $2,000. Targeted at people who could not yet afford a real Cartier watch for several thousand dollars but longed for the reflected glory of its brand name, Les Must set the company ablaze, just as Perrin's lighters had done a few years earlier.

Perrin’s self-imposed brief was to maintain control over both the conception and manufacturing of the watches, handbags, pens, lighters and fragrances that bore the Cartier name. Its launch rapidly became a business school case study – as the company reached out to a new and young international clientele eager to add a dash of elegance and refinement to their everyday lives – whilst at the same time keeping their bank balances in tact. It did not take too long for Perrin’s reward to come – for at 39 years of age Cartier's golden boy found himself voted in as Chairman of the entire group. Under his energetic leadership the company has continued to go from strength to strength, now boasting 190 boutiques around the world, the Cartier name now synonymous with the notion of luxury. Of course it did not take too long before others were following hard on his heels – but Perrin’s trump was that he was the first to realise that a jewelry company could diversify and operate successfully on a truly international scale.

Perrin might well be an ebullient and engaging personality, but there is not even the slightest whiff of glasnost when it comes to discussing any issue relating to finance. As a subsidiary of the luxury Vendôme Group, a company controlled by the powerful South African Rupert Financial Company and chaired by Joseph Kanoui, Perrin’s strategy has been to keep much key financial information under wraps, and he refuses to be drawn on any issue relating either to profit or turnover.

The legendary Cartier firm was founded back in the middle of the 19^th century by Louis-François Cartier in the workshop of his former employer Adolphe Picard. Almost immediately a reputation was established for creating jewelry for the rich and famous - his clients including Princess Mathilde, a niece of Napoleon I and the Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III. It's a distinguished if somewhat daunting heritage of which Perrin is acutely aware whilst at the same time anxious to respect. Indeed, it was England's Prince of Wales, who went on to become King Edward VII, who uttered the phrase that remains famous to this day. "Cartier," he declared, "jeweler of Kings and King of jewelers." This was no idle flattery on his part, for he went on to order no less than 27 tiaras for his coronation shortly after the turn of the century.

But isn't luxury notoriously difficult to define? "Not at all," replies Perrin, ever the philosopher, who proceeds to launch into a typically French and flowery definition. "Luxury," he affirms, "is a measured universe of harmonious grace and subtle nuance in which all seems guided by an instinct of happiness, a world which displays loyalty to material things whilst at the same time remaining faithful to the intensity of passions."

Perrin can pride himself on being one of a handful of businessmen able to combine a craftsman's eye with acute commercial strategy. He bounds around his office at the top of Cartier's Paris headquarters, tossing a golf ball from one hand to another with a rollicking laugh. His good humor seems justified - sales of luxury goods are soaring world-wide, despite the down-turn in the global economy triggered by the Asian economic crisis. "Compared to other luxury companies", Perrin crows, "Asia is not the only important market for Cartier. We have seen very strong growth in North American markets. Besides the tigers of the Orient have an insatiable appetite for French and European status symobls such as luxury watches."

And that, needless to say, augurs well for Cartier, which has dominated the market for expensive watches and jewelry for decades. "Recession, what recession?" asks Perrin with a mischievous grin on his face. All of which means that he has been able to pursue his passion for the arts with renewed energy and enthusiasm. "The Foundation is all about allowing the up-and-coming artists of today to be able to express themselves. But in order to be able to do that they have to be able to live. This is where Cartier can step in and help."

And yet Perrin was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Far from it. His mother was from a family of humble origins on the Mediterranean island of Corsica. And although his father was from distinctly middle-class stock in the French wine-growing region of Burgundy, he was obliged to work his way up through the ranks in a factory, putting his expertise to good use in the manufacture of submarines. Maybe it was this unusual combination of Latin and French cultures which led to Perrin’s interest in multi-cultural diversity and art. Perrin is none too sure himself and doesn’t seek to analyse it unduly. Whatever the case his love of art led him to acquire, in a private capacity, a Paris antique shop, which he owned for a number of years where he dabbled and traded in paintings and objets d’art to his heart’s content. Once heading up the Cartier empire, therefore, there were few surprises when Perrin announced that the greater part of his funding would be directed towards the contemporary art. "Art and luxury are inexorably bound up with one another", he affirms with customary conviction, "the quest for excellence and what is essential to people."

Away from the grandes soirées staged by the Foundation, Perrin has not forgotten those perhaps closer to the Cartier home – craftsmen whose watchmaking skills were slowly but steadily dying out. He was thus the innovator within the profession which, in 1992, led to the creation of the Training Institute in Fine Watchmaking in St-Imier, Switzerland. Its aim? To train highly-skilled professionals within the world of Haute Horlogerie, with a view to perpetuating that Swiss savoir-faire.

It would be a mistake to be lulled into thinking, however, that there is no more to Perrin than a continual round of hand-outs and donations to a variety of good causes. For whilst he has been successful in seducing a clientele seeking an elegance that reflects the mood of the end of the millennium, he has simultaneously been pursuing those who dabble in Cartier counterfeiting with a ruthlessness that has won him the admiration of other luxury brand CEOs such as those at Dior, Chanel and Vuitton. "We have a very active policy to protect our brand", Perrin confides, "with many people working for us full time in this field. I am not talking here about targeting the little man in the street – it’s the highly organised criminal organisations that we go after. We favour very repressive laws to outlaw counterfeiting. People tell me that they worry about the issue of freedom – but copying, in my view, is no freedom at all." Facts and figures please? Sorry - time for those Cartier shutters to go down once more, one reason why a London analyst recently described the company as more secretive than a Swiss Bank.

Push Perrin just a little and he will confess to having one other item of luxury on his agenda-free time. Rugby, sailing and horse-riding are all very well and fine by way of sporty activities, he will tell you, but good Frenchman that he be, his greatest passion in life is for wine. One of the reasons why, back in 1980, together with his wife Marie-Thérèse he bought and restored the magnificent 16^th century Château Lagrezette in the Cahors region of France, famous for its black wines. And in reinstating the vineyards to their former glory he also managed to create two dozen new jobs in the process Perrin's ability to make the link between the world of commerce and the sometimes ephemeral world of art led to his appointment in 1986 as Head of Corporate Sponsorship by François Léotard, then France's Minister of Culture and Communication. He was also made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, one of the most prestigious awards in the land.

"Cartier's continued support for the contemporary arts is the most natural thing in the world," Perrin concludes. "Artists and craftsmen and women of all kind have stood us in good stead, so to me it's absolutely normal that we should seek to give something back to the community. We are a historic company, true, but if you come and visit us today you will see that the atmosphere is one of a young company looking forward and to the future. I

could not live without being able to create. I am convinced that happiness in life is in battling to win. Because in art and jewellery alike I am in no doubt that our most gloriously creative days are still to come."