ROLF VAN BUEREN: BUILDING AN EMPIRE
For a family of jewellers, success came from curiosity, creativity and taking chances,
IT must have been a late night for the von Buerens. Its patriarch, Rolf, looks a little disorientated as he introduces himself and extends his hand for a handshake.
Barely a day ago, the family which owns the renowned luxury brand Lotus Arts De Vivre, had flown in from their home in Bangkok to set up a space at the Ritz Carlton Kuala Lumpur where their work, namely jewellery and sculptures, was displayed.
While the brand has hosted many exhibitions in KL, this one stands out for a very unique reason — the von Buerens were releasing their very first book, Unexpected Creations, a four-year labour of love featuring a collection of their finest pieces over three decades since the brand was born.
It may be selling at close to a thousand Ringgit, but it’s a small price in comparison to the kind of wealth the 352 glossy pages hold. Authored by Victoria Gomelsky, the book, the first Asian entry to be put in print by luxury book publisher Assouline, also features Isseymiyaki photographer Yuriko Tagaki’s stunning images, capturing mesmerising colours and meticulous, unique details of each piece, revealing the heart of the von Bueren’s creative prowess.
ARTISANAL GEMS
“Last night was very good,” a smiling Rolf von Bueren says of the launch of the book. The black-tie event saw the creme de la creme of the country mingling and ogling at pieces from the brand. “It was nice to see some old friends. And we sold every piece we laid out,” he shares before settling onto a light grey sofa in the middle of the Ritz Carlton’s Private Room where some of the pieces are displayed. “For years, our customers were saying, you’ve got to document your work. The design process is so unique! When are you coming up with a book?” he recounts, adding that most of the pieces crafted are one-off pieces made with a multitude of natural materials including gemstones, wood, lacquer, snakeskin, wings of beetles, pearls and jade, just to name a few.
The brand may have been conceived and curated in Thailand, but its loyal patrons are all around the world and include the likes of the Thai royal family, Gore Vidal, Gianni Versace as well as Tinsel town heavyweights Goldie Hawn, Sharon Stone and most notably, Elizabeth Taylor.
“There’s no line between work and family in our home. I wish there was!” he laughs, referring to the business started by his wife Helen. His two sons, Nicklas and Sri are now at the helm of the luxury brand. “The four of us fought over the book for many years!” he admits, laughing.
At a glance, it’s easy to assume the lives of the jet-setting von Buerens are very glamorous ones. But like Rome, this dynasty wasn’t built in a day.
LEARNING CURVES
Born and raised in Frankfurt by classconscious parents in a childhood he once described as having “lots of rules and little tolerance”, von Bueren grew up in a bleak and melancholic period. “You cannot imagine. You could walk for three km to town and there wasn’t one building left,” von Bueren says, recalling life in post-war West Germany. “There were grim faces all around. No one joked or laughed much.”
The material recovery of the war was fast, he notes, but the mental recovery lasted even years after the last prisoners of war returned to Germany in 1957. In fact, the mental scars can still be felt today. “It’s a good thing we lost the war, or else I might have been a governor of a province in Russia!” von Bueren says jokingly, a boyish smile on his face.
For years, even after the war, a young von Bueren and his family struggled to grapple with rebuilding their lives from scratch. So when the opportunity to go to Thailand presented itself in the form of work, he couldn’t resist. Von Bueren was a representative of a German chemical company when he first arrived in Bangkok in 1962. “I came to a country that hadn’t had war in over 200 years. People were smiling, the sun was out, and there was good food — so opposite from the Germany I grew up in.”
But Thailand brought more than sunshine into von Bueren’s life — it was where he met the love of his life, Helen.
GEM OF A LIFE
It’s hard to believe the brand has only
been around for over 30 years, a business born in part, by turning a negative into positive. When both Nicklas and Sri left to further their studies in the UK, Helen didn’t quite know what to do with her time. “I told her she should start a hobby of some sort to keep active,” von Bueren explains. “And she’s always had great taste and a good eye for art so designing pieces came naturally to her.”
As a family, the von Buerens travelled the world and acquired many unique sculptures and jewellery. While he continued to work in the investment line in Bangkok, Helen would share with her circle of friends the gems she picked up from their travels and the well-crafted designs of her own.
He then tried to persuade his wife to set up a business, an idea she rendered as “stupid”. Chuckling, he recalls: “My wife comes from a government official family so she had neither commercial ambitions nor talent. But there was potential in selling these one of a kind pieces.”
He admits to hating the word “passion”, but that’s exactly what he saw in his wife when she started crafting designs, which to him were unconventional. “Maybe that was the foundation of our business because we created non-commercial designs, something you wouldn’t sell, but could sell. And we developed it from that and stuck to that,” he explains.
LIVE AND LET GO
Von Bueren sold off all his investments and went full throttle into the jewellery business. “It was such a difficult learning curve,” he shares, shaking his head. “There were many different lessons to learn, some business, some artistic and some personal,” he laments, adding that of all the lessons, the most important was a personal one. He continues: “In Germany, the essence of a gentleman is attachment. You belong to a party or group. You have loyalty and you die for that loyalty. In Thailand, the mark of a gentleman is detachment. You don’t get involved in things. Westerners, they fight till the end. Here in Thailand, you accept and let it go. If you’re attached you run into walls.”
The same lesson played a crucial role in running Lotus Arts De Vivre. “Seventyfive percent of our designs are successful, the other 20 per cent plus are not. If you’re attached, you find all kind of excuses why it’s not selling. You’ve got to let go. Just accept that the design wasn’t good enough. Let go.”
Von Bueren’s flow of conversation about culture and craftsmanship is briefly interrupted by a team member who proceeds to remind him of other appointments he has to attend to before flying off to India to launch Unexpected
Creations there. He doesn’t leave however, till he shares what he thinks is one of the most valuable lessons he has handed down to his sons, and later, to his grandchildren. “Curiosity,” he says, adding: “Curiosity is at the root of our brand. We’re always exploring different things and cultures which is evident in our designs. And the difference between being younger and older is, really, curiosity.”
Concluding with a chuckle, he jokes: “Once you stop being curious and you look only in the past, you become an old fart”.