The Power Behind The Cologne – The New York Times

The Wertheimers refused a formal interview with The Times for this article, although Alain did say: ”I spoke to the Wine Spectator because that’s PR, that’s how you sell wine. I will gladly speak to you, about the wine and the horses, because we sell the brand value. Horses are the brand value of ‘Wertheimer Frères.’ But I don’t give interviews on Chanel because it is not useful for the Chanel business.”

Dozens of others did speak to The Times about this reclusive family, and this is probably one of the first glimpses of their lifestyle. For example, the Wertheimers have an impressive art collection — Picasso, Matisse, Rousseau and many fine Asian pieces — that graces their eight homes as well as the company’s executive offices on 57th Street, yet they never allow any of the works to be loaned or photographed. Alain, slim, bearded, the more cynical of the two brothers, lives with his wife, Brigitte, and their three children in a grand apartment on Fifth Avenue, has a country home in Connecticut and is steeped in money — Forbes estimates the family’s combined wealth to be $5 billion — but he doesn’t hesitate to use his Metrocard to get around Manhattan. Similarly, he and Brigitte shun the charity ball and Park Avenue dinner circuit. As Nan Kempner, the New York socialite, puts it, ”I’ve known them for years to say, ‘How do you do,’ but I’ve never been in their house, and they have never been to mine.”

Gérard, short, slightly round and more affable, lives a similarly private life with his wife, Valérie, and their two teenagers in an antique- and art-filled manse with a formal French garden in the exclusive Vandoeuvres section of Geneva. ”They are very secluded,” says one high-standing Geneva businessman, who, like others of his social standing, refuses to speak for attribution. ”You don’t see them in restaurants, they aren’t part of the fake Geneva crowd.

”Valérie,” he adds, ”is the anti-Nan Kempner.”

When the Wertheimers are in Paris, they rarely step out. They are great enthusiasts of classical music ”and they do quite often go to the Théâtre du Châtelet because I bump into them,” says Emmanuel de Brantes, former social editor of French Vogue. ”I do see them every year at the Arc de Triomphe horse race at Longchamp. But they don’t feel compelled to go out, even for Chanel-related things. It’s quite strange.”

What the Wertheimers do instead is live like Old World aristocrats — that is, in quiet luxury. Their friends are a small, tight-lipped circle of Rothschilds, Wildensteins, Gutfreunds and Bichs (of Bic-ballpoint-pen wealth). Their passions are shooting (years back, doves in Mexico; these days, game at their chateau in the Loire Valley), horse racing (their stables are among the greatest in the world), fine wines (two more chateaus, in Bordeaux), art collecting and skiing at their chalet in the Swiss Alps.