JOYOUS HEARTS

Chopard debuts its newest jewellery collection, and it’s all about the heart

Chopard presents My Happy Hearts, the maison’s brand-new jewellery collection for women. It features one of the Chopard’s most emblematic motifs -the heart - in a new minimalist style and proportion. It is the embodiment of “less is more,” of chic minimalism.

The new jewellery collection is designed to be used as a fashion accessory. The small size of the pieces in this collection and their unified design ethos make each piece suitable to be worn alone or as part of an ensemble, in a game of mix and match, featuring the different models and colours to suit one’s moods, outfits, emotions or the seasons.

My Happy Hearts draws on a rich Chopard legacy dating back to the 1970s, and to the father of the current co-chairs of the maison. In 1976, 13 years after acquiring the Chopard watchmaking business, Karl Scheufele III presented the Happy Diamonds watch to the world.

It was the first men’s watch to have free-moving diamonds encased between two sapphire crystals. The patented innovation released the diamonds from their traditional settings, and instead, with every movement of the wrist, they were free to “dance” across the dial.

This innovation was avant-garde, to say the least, both in terms of concept and design. The diamonds, among the hardest substances known to man, normally would leave behind scratches as they moved around, even on a substance as hard as sapphire. The solution was to cover the diamonds with a delicate film of gold. The Happy Diamonds watch, awarded the Baden-Baden Rose d’Or in 1976, was a tremendous commercial success and spawned an entire collection of watches.

In 1985, Caroline Scheufele, Karl Scheufele’s daughter and current co-chairperson of Chopard, designed the Happy Clown, a clown figurine in gold whose transparent tummy contained free-moving diamonds. The clown was another commercial success for the maison, and became the genesis for Chopard’s jewellery collection.

The symbolism of the heart is ever present in nearly all of Chopard’s collections these days – from Haute Joaillerie to watches and accessories. It dates back to 2015, when Caroline designed a bangle for supermodel Petra Nemcova’s All Hands and Hearts Smart Response Foundation, which provides help for children in areas affected by natural disasters.

The 18-carat rose gold bangle featured a red heart cut from Carnelian at one end, and a smaller transparent heart at the other end containing a single free-floating diamond. This limited edition bangle spawned the brand’s playful Happy Hearts collection, which now includes necklaces, pendants, ear clips, earrings, and watches in rose, white and yellow gold, as well as four sub-collections.

Chopard’s new My Happy Hearts collection builds on the legacy of the Happy Diamonds and Happy Hearts collection, but takes things to a more miniaturised scale. The pieces are slender and more discreet, a sort of luxury “kawaii” jewellery that can barely be felt by the wearer. Thus, the pieces in this collection are wearable for any occasion, be it Pilates sessions or flamboyant parties, at the office or on the beach, while wearing sneakers or stilettos.

“My Happy Hearts is a collection that embodies a way of loving oneself in a sunny, generous and benevolent manner, in order to radiate the light cultivated within,” reads a statement by Chopard.

It continues, “The heart, an essential symbol of the Maison that has reinvented it by capturing its peerless formal quintessence, has been redesigned in a miniature format as My Happy Hearts, while retaining the formal perfection of its curves. A symbol that is both soothing and sends a peaceful message, filled with tenderness, providing scope for unlimited creativity in the way the various jewels in the collection can be worn.”

My Happy Hearts collection includes necklaces, chain bracelets, rings and earrings centred on the single heart motif. While the body may be in either “ethical” 18-carat rose or white gold, the literal heart of each piece of jewellery in this collection is in carnelian, mother-of-pearl or diamond-set versions.

While the red of Carnelian inflames one’s passion and the spirit within, the pure, silky, iridescent mother-ofpearl captures the spirit of a comforting presence. The diamond set, as always, does not fail to dazzle. The collection would not be complete, in a Chopard sense, without dancing diamonds. In this case, the rings and earrings are available with a single dancing diamond to capture the light-hearted side of life.

To enhance the mix and match ethos of the collection, the earrings can be acquired individually: to be worn alone, in groups on one ear or asymmetrically.

Chopard has an enviable track record when it comes to debuting new collections. Based on first impressions, the new My Happy Hearts collection looks all set to follow in the footsteps of its predecessors, especially given that it shares so much of their DNA.