Chopard

If pure value retention is your priority, classic Cartier watches tend to be the safer investment, helped by very strong brand recognition and heritage in watchmaking. Chopard's appeal is different: the Happy Diamonds line offers a playful, distinctive aesthetic built around free-floating diamonds that you won't find elsewhere. Buy a Happy Diamonds piece because you love the design and the craft rather than purely as an appreciating asset.

From 1976, Chopard began making watches with its signature free-floating diamonds, which move freely behind sapphire glass rather than being set in a fixed position. The effect is the diamonds appearing to dance across the dial, and it became one of the house's most recognisable signatures. A Happy Diamond wristwatch even set an auction record, selling at Christie's for around US$1.67 million in Geneva in 2015.

Chopard was founded in 1860 by Louis-Ulysse Chopard in Sonvilier, a town in the Swiss Jura. He established his L.U.C. manufacturing company after observing that it was more profitable to market a finished watch than to make only the movement. The full company name remains Le Petit-Fils de L.-U. Chopard & Cie S.A.

Chopard has been owned by the Scheufele family of Germany since 1963. In that year, Paul-André Chopard, having no children wishing to continue the business, sold it to Karl Scheufele III, a German goldsmith and watchmaker from Pforzheim who was seeking a watch-movement manufacturer for his own business. The company is headquartered in Geneva.

It does now, but not always. In 1996 Chopard established its own complete movement manufacturing facility in Fleurier, in the Swiss Canton of Neuchâtel, intended for the high-end watches in its range. Before that, all of Chopard's movements had been assembled from third-party components, so the Fleurier site marked a major step toward in-house watchmaking.

The Mille Miglia line is tied to Chopard's role as a corporate partner of the Mille Miglia car rally, a relationship that has run since 1988. That long-standing motorsport association gives the collection its racing-inspired character. It's one of the brand's most recognisable lines for those drawn to sports watches.

Chopard has been promoting its products as made from ethically and sustainably sourced gold since 2013. French actress Marion Cotillard designed a bracelet for Chopard's Green Carpet Collection in ethical Fairmined-certified gold in 2015, and in 2020 she created her own 'Ice Cube Capsule' collection of seven pieces from Fairmined gold and diamonds. The ethical-gold message has become central to the brand's identity.

Yes. In December 2018 the World Wide Fund for Nature released a report rating 15 major Swiss watch and jewellery manufacturers, and Chopard was placed in the 'Lower Midfield' with a below-average environmental rating, suggesting it had taken only a few actions on its manufacturing impact. This sits alongside the brand's own promotion of ethical gold since 2013, so it's worth weighing both points.

Chopard has been a corporate partner of the Cannes Film Festival since 1998, sponsoring the Trophée Chopard prize and making the festival's Palme d'Or trophy. To mark the festival's 70th anniversary and 20 years of the partnership, Chopard created a special Palme d'Or adorned with Fairmined diamonds. It's one of the brand's most visible cultural associations.

Chopard produces around 75,000 timepieces and 75,000 jewellery pieces each year, a deliberately limited output for a house of its scale. It is an active member of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, and by 2014 recorded sales of roughly CHF 800 million with around 2,000 employees worldwide. That combination of modest volume and full Swiss manufacturing underpins its luxury positioning.

When the company relocated to Geneva in 1937, its movements became eligible for the Geneva Seal, a mark applied only to watch movements made in the Canton of Geneva. It's a historic marker of where and how a movement was finished. For collectors, this is part of the heritage context behind the brand's mid-century pieces.