A cinematic campaign, a watchmaking icon reborn and a new family of pendants mark half a century of diamonds set free.
Some ideas are too joyful to stay still. Fifty years after it first freed diamonds from their settings, Chopard marks the anniversary of Happy Diamonds with a cinematic campaign starring two of fashion’s most compelling faces, Bella Hadid and Liu Wen.
Directed by Manu Cossu and photographed by Greg Williams, the campaign makes movement its central language. Diamonds drift across skin, respond to a turned shoulder or a held breath, and catch the light like fleeting fragments. Choreographer Stephen Galloway, drawing on contemporary dance, shaped every gesture down to the smallest detail.
Two Faces, One Freedom
The casting is a study in contrast. Hadid, an ambassador for the House since 2024, brings an electric spontaneity, her gestures instinctive and unscripted. Newly appointed ambassador Liu Wen offers the counterpoint: composed, deliberate and quietly powerful. “For 50 years, the dance of Happy Diamonds has mirrored freedom,” says Caroline Scheufele, Co-President and Artistic Director of the maison.
A Waterfall and a Philosophy
The story begins in 1976, with sunlight scattering across the spray of a Black Forest waterfall. Translated into jewellery, that image became diamonds moving freely between two sapphire crystals. On seeing the first prototype, Karin Scheufele remarked that diamonds are happier when they are free, and the phrase became a guiding principle.
The Icons Return
The campaign reintroduces Happy Sport The First, a re-edition of the 1993 watch that became the first to pair steel with diamonds. Imagined by Caroline Scheufele for women, it returns in 26 mm and 33 mm sizes, in Lucent Steel™ and ethical yellow gold, its proportions refined but its spirit intact.
Alongside it arrives a new family of Happy Diamonds pendants, reviving a rectangular silhouette first drawn in 2006. Six designs span two sizes in ethical yellow, rose and white gold, each with more room inside for the diamonds to dance. A new rectangular-link chain, made in-house, invites layering, and the pieces are designed to be worn by anyone.
At the summit sits a high jewellery pendant crafted in the Haute Joaillerie atelier. Seven happy diamonds move within a frame of trapeze and emerald-cut diamonds that illuminates the centre without ever confining it.
Brilliance With a Conscience
That freedom extends to the materials. Since 2018, the Geneva house has used 100% ethical gold across its watches and jewellery. Lucent Steel™, made with 80% recycled material, followed in 2023.
Half a century on, the message holds. Beauty lives in movement, and the best of it often arrives unexpectedly.
