Chopard Happy Diamonds 40th Anniversary

CHOPARD celebrates 40th Year Anniversary of Happy Diamonds with Happy Dreams and Precious Couture 2016 Happy Diamonds watch 204368-1001 1976: The most innovative watch design of 1976 came from the inspired mind of Ronald Kurowski, a designer at Chopard. Hiking through the Black Forest, he came upon

CHOPARD celebrates 40th Year Anniversary of Happy Diamonds with Happy Dreams and Precious Couture

1976:
The most innovative watch design of 1976 came from the inspired mind of Ronald Kurowski, a designer at Chopard. Hiking through the Black Forest, he came upon a waterfall with water droplets sparkling in the sunshine. It inspired him to design a watch embellished with countless dancing diamonds, without settings and freely moving between dial, bezel and sapphire crystal.
Brilliant-cut diamonds are at their most beautiful when their 'fire' is lit by movement. Like water droplets refracting sunlight, diamond facets also refract light into rainbow hues. Kurowski always felt restricted by fixed gem settings so the new design really "liberated the diamonds".

Karin Scheufele had remarked that "diamonds are happiest when they are free to dance"; hence the name 'Happy Diamonds'.

The Gents' Happy Diamonds watch, a large cushion-shaped timepiece with an 18-carat white gold case and bracelet framing a black dial magnificently highlighting the first moving diamonds, took the world by storm in 1977.  It was joined by a Ladies' version.

In that first year alone, more than 10,000 Happy Diamonds watches were sold !

2016:
The first Happy Diamonds model was a men’s watch that won the prestigious Golden Rose of Baden-Baden in 1976. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of that seminal event, a special watch is presented.

Picking up the initial cushion shape, but this time designed for women, today’s Happy Diamonds watch is a precious jewellery model exuding a charm that is both vintage and contemporary. The prong-set diamonds encircling the dial emphasise its gentle curves, while new mobile diamonds whirl freely across a textured white mother-of-pearl background. There are more of them than ever and they are also larger, as well as in different sizes, thereby accentuating their whirling dance and the sense of diamond-studded profusion. Inside this playground, a mini sub-dial, also ringed with diamonds, bears the watch hands.

Happy Diamonds watch in 18ct white gold designed in a cushion shape with a bezel set with prong set diamonds, dial in white mother of pearl, 15 mobile prong set diamonds featured in two different sizes, black brushed canvas strap.  Ref. 204368-1001

MTF:  I'm still holding out for the re-edition of a Gent's Happy Diamonds!

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Large Happy Dreams pendant in 18ct white gold, fully set with prong-set diamonds, 3 mobile prong-set diamonds, background in white mother of pearl.  Ref. 799882-1001

PuristS are familiar with the origins of the Happy Diamonds watches and subsequent jewellery lines. From the sparkling water droplets seen by a man who refused to heed the warning "Don't go chasing waterfalls", many dreams have enveloped us since 1976.
Forty years on, Happy Dreams with its interwoven circles and its round, full curves, introduces a new play on light and new volume effects. Inspired by clouds, these dreamy and romantic creations invite the imagination to roam freely through the realms of space.

Chopard presents a new jewellery collection drawn from the theme of its famous free-spinning diamonds. Inspired by clouds and borne upon the gentle wings of fanciful reveries, Happy Dreams treats the world’s most joyful diamonds to an ethereal fantasy journey.

Lightness, motion, inspiration and stunning horizons. ‘Looking skyward’ and ‘head in the clouds’: a whole dreamy new vocabulary and unprecedented feather-soft designs are making their entrance into the iconic Happy Diamonds collection. Set against a superb mother-of-pearl background floating amid ‘heavenly’ scenery, the famous moving diamonds continue their dazzling waltz. Happy Dreams is a precious collection displaying even more generously sized moving diamonds featuring a new ‘prong’ setting.

Dreamy mother-of-pearl and feathery softness
In the Happy Dreams collections, diamonds swirl across textured white mother-of-pearl forming a soft, airy cocoon. Another new feature of these models lies in the fact that all diamonds – including the moving variety – are prong-set, endowing them with an even more striking aura of freedom and ethereal grace. This precious setting technique reveals the diamond in all its pristine purity and nobility.

Happy Dreams jewellery
Happy Dreams is a jewellery collection comprising earrings, a necklace, a ring and a large pendant. The latter, composed of four interlacing circles, is graced with beautifully balanced proportions. Three moving diamonds dance in the foreground, while the other circles – each set with diamonds – are also lit up by a shimmering textured pearl background. The other models feature similar designs but in even daintier sizes, with three or four delicately interwoven gem-set circles of which one is adorned with a prong-set moving diamond.

MTF: Amongst the rhetoric, I urge you not to ignore the technical revelation: ALL the diamonds INCLUDING the moving variety are prong-set!

Read the reasons why again.

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Another level up from the Happy Diamonds range are the Chopard High Jewellery lines.
This year sees the introduction of the Precious Couture Collection

Chopard co-president and artistic director, Caroline Scheufele is the driving force behind the development of the Chopard Haute Joaillerie collections.

For Chopard's 125th Anniversary in 1985, they introduced jewellery for the first time as the "Happy Diamonds" Collection. Caroline Scheufele designed a clown with hinged legs and a tummy full of diamonds and colored stones. It was to become Chopard’s icon and propelled the company into its first high-end jewellery line. At that time, nobody at the Basel trade fair could guess that the little jewellery Happy Clown would lead to Chopard's eminence in jewellery today.

Precious Couture collection

When a ballerina performs a jump, there is an incredible moment of miraculous suspension, those wonderful seconds of weightlessness when the audience holds its breath. It is precisely this moment of magic that is captured in the watch from the Precious Couture collection, much like a dancer in mid-air – feather-light and ignoring the laws of gravity – whose skirt flares out, unfurling like a flower in spring. The collection comprises a watch, a pair of earrings and a ring, each of which picks up this laced-edge petal motif.

Just as Haute Couture works only with exceptional fabrics, giving life to this collection naturally called for the most beautiful stones, Diamonds, sapphires, emeralds and rubies and thus only the most precious gems that make these finely crafted skirts swirl and twirl. The preview presentation of the Precious Couture collection features its sapphire interpretation, imbued with a deep blue shade that endows the three creations with splendidly noble elegance.

MTF: I finally figured out the charm of Chopard:  It's All about Movement.

From Dancing Diamonds to articulated clowns and bears or Fleur d’Opales and now in the Precious Couture Collection: it's always been about the movement.

Enjoy!

MTF