Chopard revives its original 1976 Happy Diamonds and 1993 Happy Sport

Chopard has reissued the earliest versions of its two best-known watch families, the Happy Diamonds from 1976 and the Happy Sport from 1993, to mark 50 years since the maison first let diamonds move freely inside a watch case. Both new pieces are direct re-editions rather than reinterpretations, matching the originals' proportions, dials and construction.

What the Happy Diamonds Heritage brings back

The Happy Diamonds Heritage comes in cushion-shaped cases of 18-carat ethical yellow gold with polished black onyx dials, in the same two sizes offered in 1976: 34mm by 34mm and a smaller 24mm. The larger model contains 21 moving diamonds, the smaller nine, each floating between two sapphire crystals rather than fixed to the dial.

Chopard's own account traces the idea to sunlight scattered across a waterfall spray in Germany's Black Forest, said to have inspired the original 1976 concept of diamonds set loose inside individual gold capsules. It became one of the maison's most recognizable signatures, part of a Chopard watch and jewelry range we track for its recommended retail pricing.

Inside the 34mm case is Chopard's hand-wound caliber 10.01-C, a movement just 15.7mm wide that the maison introduced in 2024. It runs at 3Hz, offers 45 hours of power reserve, and is visible through a sapphire caseback. The 24mm version instead uses a quartz movement.

Chopard rates both sizes to withstand submersion to 30 meters and fits each on a black alligator strap closed with a matching yellow-gold buckle. The crowns are set with onyx, a detail carried straight over from the 1976 originals rather than updated for the reissue.

Both sizes preserve the case shape and diamond count of the watches Chopard made half a century ago, with no dimension enlarged and no dial layout altered for modern tastes. That fidelity is the point of a heritage reissue rather than a shortcoming of one.

How the Happy Sport The First differs

Happy Sport The First revives Caroline Scheufele's 1993 design, the watch that first paired diamonds with stainless steel at a moment when the combination was considered unusual for fine jewelry houses. Scheufele is Chopard's Co-President and Artistic Director, and the original piece was her own idea rather than a market-research brief.

"When I first designed it, everybody sort of declared me a little bit crazy," Scheufele said. "My father said, 'How can you put diamonds in a steel watch?' I said, 'Why can't I?'" She recalled bringing the finished prototype to her father's office and being asked simply, "Steel?"

The reissue comes in 26mm and 33mm sizes, in Chopard's Lucent Steel, two-tone steel, ethical yellow gold, or solid ethical yellow gold. The 26mm models carry five moving diamonds, the 33mm versions seven, and all are quartz-powered, matching the original's construction rather than adding a mechanical movement.

The pebble-link bracelet, inspired by stones smoothed by the sea, returns as well, redesigned and manufactured in-house with rounded links intended to move with the suppleness of a piece of jewelry rather than a conventional watch strap. The silver-toned grained dial keeps its blue Roman numerals, railway minute track and blued sword-shaped hands.

Scheufele has made few changes beyond brighter steel, a more supple bracelet and ethically sourced gold and diamonds. "If you say you go back to your roots, you take the best of what the product had," she said, describing a reissue built on restraint rather than redesign after more than 30 years.

Why the restraint is the point

Steel watches set with diamonds are common now, which makes it easy to miss how unusual the original Happy Sport was in 1993. Scheufele designed it for her own life, a watch she could wear playing tennis, swimming or water-skiing, without treating practicality and glamour as opposites.

That context matters because Chopard is among the leading jewelry houses alongside Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Bulgari, and the Happy Sport is one of its most identifiable lines.

Bella Hadid and Liu Wen front the campaign for the reissues. Hadid, who moves between equestrian pursuits, off-duty dressing and red-carpet appearances, is presented as continuing Scheufele's original brief: a diamond watch meant to be worn as easily with jeans as with evening dress.

Chopard has not disclosed pricing or production numbers for either reissue, and no release date beyond the 50th-anniversary framing has been given. What the maison has confirmed is scope: two heritage lines, four case sizes across them, and materials specified down to the diamond counts on every version.