INTERVIEW WITH JOCHEN SCHAEPERS,
HEAD OF THE DESIGN DEPARTMENT

YOU HAVE NOW BEEN WORKING AT KUHN RIKON FOR A YEAR. HOW HAVE YOU SETTLED IN?

A lot of things were new to me. I had only just moved to Switzerland a short time before. Prior to that, I had lived in New York for nearly 25 years and worked exclusively for design consultancy firms. To head up a design team at such a renowned manufacturer as Kuhn Rikon was a great challenge for me. I was naturally very nervous at the start. What are the people actually like in this foreign country, and will I be able to understand them at all? (I am German by birth.) And then there was also the fact that the Coronavirus hit us just as I was starting, with all the ensuing restrictions.

But despite everything, before I knew it, I was just simply part of this large family called Kuhn Rikon. The reciprocal support, the openness, the close collaboration are just brilliant. It doesn’t matter who I am dealing with – I can just be myself and that is very important to me. The other thing that surprised me is the receptiveness and flexibility in trying out suggestions for new ways of working and implementing them. Already, after such a short time, I have the feeling that my contributions do make a small difference. What more can you want?

So, I have settled in very well; only, as regards Swiss German … oh dear!

WHICH PROJECTS HAVE YOU BEEN LOOKING AFTER THIS YEAR?

Apart from the project business for which we are developing numerous kitchen gadgets, and which makes up a great deal of our work, we have the opportunity to rework our most important product lines, the DUROMATIC und the DUROTHERM. We are also developing another cookware line for our «hobby chef» target group with a totally new aesthetic. We are in the middle of all this and I am super excited as to how it will all turn out.

Also, at the same time, we are working on re-defining our design strategy and doing so more precisely so that the quality of our products is conveyed more clearly. I find it very exciting to tackle the projects under one roof together with all the other teams – Product Management, Development and Marketing right through to Sales.

YOU HELPED WITH THE DESIGN OF THE NEW LIMITED EDITION OF THE COLORI®+ PARING KNIVES. HOW DID YOU HIT UPON THE DESIGN? CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO US HOW SUCH LIMITED EDITIONS COME ABOUT?
That is such a good example as to why I am glad to have a versatile team as, to be quite honest, I am less interested in this purely decorative task. What you can’t see here is all the many, many other attempts at a pattern that did not make it. At the outset we immersed ourselves in trends in all possible areas – furniture, textiles, interior design, fashion, product, etc. – before we started to brainstorm different ideas and then sketch samples. The difficult thing is then to choose from all these attempts. I actually think the final phase is the most important one when the motifs are created in detail because, ultimately, you put your heart and soul into producing these, it doesn’t matter what the subject is. And this should be apparent.

WHICH KUHN RIKON PRODUCTS DO YOU LIKE BEST FROM A DESIGN POINT OF VIEW?
That is very easy to answer. No other product of ours touches our classic, the DUROMATIC Inox. Its beauty lies in its unpretentious, but pleasing, simplicity. Competitors' products are mostly too fussy. Above all, however, when it’s a question of safety, less complexity is always better. As a designer, I understand only too well that it is not that easy to make something simple. The handles too reflect this with their simple, elegant shape. And the conical lid is just simply iconic; that is Kuhn Rikon.