At CLUSE, we care about how we produce and how our products reach our customers. And we realize that each product has an end-of-life date, therefore we must also care about what happens next.

How it’s made has always been a key part of our brand’s DNA. Before we started CLUSE, we were active in the watch industry as retailers. There were a lot of things we liked about the fashion watch industry, but there were also parts that we thought could be improved. Quality was the key word. And this is how we decided on the name for our brand. CLUSE is named after the town of Cluses in France, just over the border near Switzerland. Cluses used to be known for its watch making institute. We wanted to honor the craft of watch making by naming our watch brand after this renowned watchmaker’s town.

We believe that a qualitative watch should have the potential to last for generations. And once its ‘life’ is no longer sustainable, the product should be recycled as much as possible. When it comes to our packaging, we have a similar approach.

Here are some of the steps we have taken in our ongoing journey to produce responsibly.

When we started CLUSE, we selected our partners carefully. We were determined to make sure that manufacturing and our products comply with the international regulations for our industry. In addition independent third parties test our products both mechanically as well as chemically.

Our brand protection team is working continuously to stop potentially harmful, counterfeit products to reach the market. We have successfully taken legal steps, both against sellers of counterfeit products as online market places. We strongly recommend our customers to only buy CLUSE products from our own website or from an official CLUSE retailer, which can be found through the store locator on our website.

CLUSE is an Amfori member. As such, we require our suppliers to comply with the BSCI (Business Social Compliance Initiative) standards. We have independent third party auditors perform audits at our suppliers’ factories to check compliance and require our suppliers to come up with remedial plans in case of non-compliance.

We continuously seek to improve the durability of our products, as we want to limit the defect rate as much as we can. Our minimum guaranteed water resistance level for watches is 3ATM, and the collections we introduced since 2020 are water resistant up to 5ATM.

As more people rediscover the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, and as partly remote working has become the norm for many companies, going to school or work by foot, bike or step, the need to be on the move in style is growing. Valuable items like laptops and tablets are taken back and forth through long walks, rides and public transportation.

In 2022, we therefore decided to start developing backpacks to support this positive trend. True to our philosophy to produce products that last, we launched a backpack line that offers two different looks in one product: Le Réversible, a backpack that can be worn on two different sides, potentially suppressing the consumer’s desire to buy yet another bag in another color.

Our reversible backpacks have been equipped with shoulder straps that can easily be interchanged. Not only does this offer the consumer the possibility to refresh the look of an existing bag, but moreover we can offer the consumer who one day might have an issue with a shoulder strap, a replacement strap. There is no need to replace a bag that can be repaired by replacing the part that broke.

In 2023, the success of our backpacks is extended to physical stores, who started to order our products in larger quantities. Together with our suppliers, we looked at ways to be able to transport more bags in one parcel. Moreover, we wanted to decrease the amount of paper used as filling of our bags. This has led to the launch of a 2.0 line of our Nuitée and Nuitée Petite collections. For these new lines, we use a different construction for the main compartment, and a different material for the inside: the lining of the 2.0 version is made of recycled polyester. As a result of this new construction, we can transport more bags in one parcel than before. Furthermore, we equipped the new Nuitée bags with a bottle compartment.

As with our products, our approach to logistics is pragmatic. We don’t like failed delivery attempts. It means another ride by the delivery van, and it means a longer wait for our customer. The delivery success rate is therefore a key element when we make our choice for a carrier. And where possible, we try to work with carriers who can safely deliver our products to our customers directly in the letter box or at a carrier drop off point.

We try to limit the amount of returns from our end consumers. From the start, we’ve done this by trying to avoid over-promising. This means that while our product looks beautiful in our pictures, we’re not overdoing the editing. We don’t like returns because the product didn’t look as nice in real life. Furthermore, we try to help customers as much as we can by clearly communicating our product specifications, such as the exact size of the product, which is key when ordering a watch, a jewellery piece or a new watch strap. In 2021, we introduced the ‘paperless return option’ for our customers in several markets, which enables the customer to return an item without having to print a return shipment label at home.

Our watches are sold by retailers worldwide. A customer of an official CLUSE retailer may return a product purchased at that retailer for service. In case of a warranty issue, we try to limit the number of watches returned by the retailer to us for service purposes. Instead, we opt as much as possible for local repair or exchange, allowing for higher service levels and avoiding back and forth transportation of our products.

At times, we donate our products to causes we believe in. We prefer to connect directly with those we support. For example, during the Covid-19 lockdowns in France and the Netherlands, we showed our support to the staff of nursing homes. In 2021, we donated products to an organization that helps people, to make a great impression during a job interview. In 2023, we provided support to an orphanage in Cluj, the city that is home to one of the core members of our IT team.