What We Know
This year marks 50 years since Chopard first “set diamonds free.” Which sounds a little cheesy, admittedly, but there is something genuinely joyful about the conceit: diamonds allowed to skitter and spin around a watch dial, never quite landing in the same place twice.
Introduced in 1976, the original Happy Diamonds placed unset diamonds inside individual gold capsules, allowing them to move between two sapphire crystals rather than remaining fixed to the dial. The idea reportedly came from sunlight dancing across a waterfall spray in Germany’s Black Forest. It would become one of Chopard’s most recognizable signatures. To celebrate the anniversary, Chopard is returning to two pivotal moments in the collection’s history: the earliest Happy Diamonds watches from 1976 and the original Happy Sport, designed in 1993 by Caroline Scheufele, Chopard’s Co-President and Artistic Director.
The Chopard Happy Diamonds Heritage watch in 34mm.
The smaller version, measuring 24mm.
The new Happy Diamonds Heritage watches are direct re-editions of those first models, with cushion-shaped cases in 18-carat ethical yellow gold and polished black onyx dials. Two sizes are available, just as there were in 1976.
The larger measures 34mm by 34mm and contains 21 moving diamonds. Inside is Chopard’s hand-wound caliber 10.01-C, a tiny 15.7mm-wide movement introduced in 2024. Visible through the sapphire caseback, it runs at 3Hz and offers 45 hours of power reserve. The smaller 24mm version uses a quartz movement and contains nine moving diamonds. Both watches are water-resistant to 30 meters and come on black alligator straps with matching yellow-gold buckles. The onyx-set crowns are a particularly nice period detail.
Then there is Happy Sport The First, which brings back Scheufele’s original 1993 design. At the time, combining diamonds with stainless steel was genuinely unusual. “When I first designed it, everybody sort of declared me a little bit crazy,” Scheufele told Hodinkee. “My father said, ‘How can you put diamonds in a steel watch?’ I said, ‘Why can’t I?’ It made it younger, more fun. You could wear it during the day.” She remembers taking the completed prototype into his office. “He said, ‘Steel?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ So that’s how it started.”
The collection returns in 26mm and 33mm sizes, with cases in Chopard’s Lucent Steel, two-tone steel, ethical yellow gold, or solid ethical yellow gold. The 26mm models contain five moving diamonds, while the 33mm versions have seven. All are quartz-powered.
A Chopard Happy Sport ad from 1993.
Most importantly, the original pebble-link bracelet is back. Inspired by stones smoothed by the sea, it has been redesigned and manufactured in-house, with rounded links that give it the suppleness of a piece of jewelry. The silver-toned grained dial retains its blue Roman numerals, railway minute track, and blued sword-shaped hands.
What We Think
It is rare for a watch designer to revisit her own work more than 30 years later. Rarer still for her to resist meddling with it. Scheufele has avoided the usual temptation to improve everything. These watches have not been dramatically upsized, flattened, or “reimagined” beyond recognition. “If you say you go back to your roots, you take the best of what the product had,” she explained. The changes are subtle: brighter steel, more supple bracelets, and ethically sourced gold and diamonds.
Caroline Scheufele, Chopard’s Co-President and Artistic Director.
That restraint matters because the original Happy Sport was more radical than it appears today. Steel watches with diamonds are now everywhere. In 1993, they were not. Scheufele designed the watch for her own life: something she could wear while playing tennis, swimming, or water-skiing. It wasn’t a calculated attempt to create a “women’s watch” dreamed up from market research in a C-suite boardroom. She simply designed the kind of watch she wanted to wear, without seeing any contradiction between practicality and glamour.
The Happy Diamonds Heritage is the more horologically satisfying of the two revivals. Its miniature hand-wound movement allows the 34mm case to remain slim, while the 21 diamonds look particularly dramatic against the black onyx. It feels like a true 1970s dress watch. A reissue done well, which, as we all know, is rarer than it should be.
Do I wish the 33mm Happy Sport had been given a mechanical movement? Not particularly. Quartz is historically accurate here and makes sense for a watch conceived as an easy, not-so-precious everyday piece of jewelry.
Bella Hadid, who fronts the new campaign alongside Liu Wen, feels like an almost inevitable choice. Scheufele originally wanted a diamond watch that could be worn with jeans as easily as a cocktail dress. Hadid, who moves rather convincingly between actual horse girl, off-duty model, and full red-carpet glamour, makes that proposition feel entirely contemporary and, crucially, relevant to a younger audience.
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