“The names of the streets speak to the urban flâneur like the snapping of dry branches,” writes Walter Benjamin in The Book of Passages. “Along both sides of these passages, which are illuminated from above, are the most elegant shops, and consequently the passage is a city, a world in miniature,” reflects the stroller Benjamin in the Paris of the 1930s. Last century. In that same decade, Madrid's modern Gran Vía was, in fact, a wide open-air passage that displayed, from its theatrical and cosmopolitan facades and shop windows, the most elegant and refined offering in the city.
In 1923 Alexandre Grassy set up his watch business (Swiss Watch Union) at number 29 and forged his impeccable reputation. He expanded it in 1953, opening an emblematic premises in which he brought together the watch and jewelry businesses and installed the Antique Clock Museum, which housed his private collection of watches from the 18th and 19th centuries. This happened at number 1, in the building shaped like a ship's bow, also called the Gran Vía lighthouse, portrayed and reproduced a thousand times by photographers, artists and travelers.
“It is a privilege to work here, I love Gran Vía,” says Patricia Reznak, granddaughter of the founder and current creative director since 2005, the year she left her architecture studio. She and her brother Yann, CEO, are in the third generation of the unique family business. They are the result of the love story between Christianne Grassy and Jirka Reznak, her parents, and Jirka's commitment to the family firm starting in 1959 and her efforts to create jewelry lines and exclusive distribution of watch brands such as Piaget, Baume -Mercier and Rolex.
“Since I was a child I have been fascinated by watches, from my visits to my grandfather's museum, and from accompanying my father to the conquest and sale of watch brands,” says Yann, “although today the offer has changed, and we bet more on independent brands than by the large ones that belong to luxury groups.” In fact, the 70 years of Gran Vía 1 are celebrated with personalized and limited editions of a watch by Moritz Grossmann and another by Nomos, two German brands that excel in manufacturing.
“My father was very involved in jewelry,” says Patricia, “but when I told him, overnight, that I wanted to get into the business, he put his hands on his head, because for him, the priority was to spend the minimum and get the most out of it. But I went in, and I did it to the brim.” She says that it was Grassy who went looking for her, as an absolute inspiration: she felt the common thread that linked architecture, jewelry design and artistic curation. Since then she has not stopped expressing herself, both in the collections generated with renowned artists and in her own.
Her latest series, Simone, is inspired by Simone de Beauvoir's iconic turbans: hand-carved pieces of rose quartz and blue chalcedony set in gray gold that emulate thick fabric drapes. A collection of rings and earrings with an effect that is more animal than mineral, which produces an irresistible sensuality. “My clients say they caress them,” she murmurs, smiling.
“This job is beautiful, and it is also beautiful to be able to work with your family.” His projects with artists have become more sparse over time, much to his chagrin; Even so, Grassy's clients and friends receive a greeting every Christmas that is in itself a small work of art. There are those who collect them and frame them.
Everything has changed with the entry of this generation, and will continue to change with the fourth, which has already joined. The clientele also changes. “There are more and more women who come in to buy a piece of jewelry for themselves or a friend. Husbands don't know what they want or what they like, they know that they will automatically change the gift, and even so they come punctually," she says. And it has also changed the world of watchmaking, according to Yann. “Before, two types of watches coexisted, the jewelery watch and the men's watch. The current trend is the unisex watch, that is, the watch that used to be masculine and now.
