Fashion

Chopard Marks 50 Years of Happy Diamonds With Bella Hadid and Liu Wen

BYKhaoula Ghanem

September 16, 2026

There are plenty of ways to show off a diamond. Chopard has spent the past 50 years letting theirs loose. In 1976, the Swiss Maison came up with an idea that sounds surprisingly simple today. Diamonds were placed between two sapphire crystals, allowing them to spin and move freely as the person wearing them went about their day. The inspiration came from sunlight hitting the spray of a waterfall in Germany’s Black Forest, where tiny flashes of light seemed to appear and disappear with the water. When Karin Scheufele saw the first prototype, she summed up the idea in a sentence that would eventually become synonymous with the collection: “Diamonds are happier when they are free.”

Fifty years later, Chopard is celebrating Happy Diamonds by going back to the idea that changed the world of jewelry and timepieces forever. Its new campaign stars Bella Hadid and Liu Wen alongside the revived Happy Sport The First watches and a new series of Happy Diamonds pendants, with movement running through practically every frame.

It makes sense when you consider that Happy Diamonds only really come alive once you put them on. Every turn of the wrist sends the stones in another direction. A necklace changes when you walk, while the diamonds inside a watch scatter around its dial depending on how you move your hand. There is no single arrangement they are supposed to fall into, which is what has made the design so fun to watch for five decades.

The campaign takes that quite literally. Hadid and Wen twist, turn, and gesture their way through a series of films directed by Manu Cossu, with choreography by Stephen Galloway and photography by Greg Williams. Cossu drew on the glamour of classic cinema, while Galloway looked to contemporary dance when developing the women’s movements. Williams gets closer still, capturing skin, reflections, and the small movements that send the diamonds spinning.

Hadid, who has been a Chopard ambassador since 2024, is expressive and physical in front of the camera. Wen, newly appointed as an ambassador for the Maison, is more measured in her movements. Both approaches have the same effect on the jewelry. The slightest change in posture is enough to rearrange the diamonds all over again.

The anniversary also brings Chopard back to 1993, when Chopard President Caroline Scheufele took the Happy Diamonds concept and applied it to a watch she actually wanted to wear every day. At the time, putting steel and diamonds together was an unconventional move in fine watchmaking. Scheufele wanted something that could work with jeans as easily as it could with a cocktail dress, so she combined the practicality of a sports watch with the moving diamonds that had already become a Chopard signature. Happy Sport was born, with the diamonds now floating directly over the dial.

The original design is back this year as Happy Sport The First, available in 26 mm and 33 mm sizes. Chopard has kept many of its most recognizable details, including the pebble-link bracelet, silver-toned dial, midnight-blue Roman numerals, and blue sword-shaped hands. Five Happy Diamonds move across the 26 mm model, while the larger 33 mm version carries seven.

The bracelet is worth a closer look, too. Scheufele originally based its rounded links on pebbles polished smooth by the sea, and Chopard has redesigned and produced the latest version entirely in-house. The watches are offered in Lucent Steel, a combination of Lucent Steel and ethical yellow gold, and full ethical yellow gold, with diamond-set options also available.

Chopard has gone back into its archives for the jewelry as well. A rectangular Happy Diamonds design first introduced in 2006 returns with slightly more room inside its frame, giving the three floating diamonds space to travel further as the necklace moves.

Seven pendants make up the collection, beginning with compact 16.5 mm designs and longer 25.4 mm versions in ethical yellow, rose and white gold. Chopard has also created a 49 mm high-jewelry pendant in ethical white gold, featuring seven Happy Diamonds framed by trapeze and emerald-cut diamonds. The accompanying rectangular-link chains have been designed so the pieces can easily be layered together.

Chopard Marks 50 Years of Happy Diamonds With Bella Hadid and Liu Wen

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