Happy Sport Métiers d'Art

Happy Sport Métiers d'Art

Three diamond-set eight-piece limited editions in ethical gold

New dancing diamonds enchant a natural environment worth preserving

Chopard celebrates its love of life through three exceptional watches issued in eight-piece limited editions and honouring three animal species that are well worth preserving. Equipped with Chopard Calibre 96.23-L with its 65-hour power reserve, crafted from ethical gold, magnificently hand-decorated and entirely set with sparkling gems, they are the quintessence of all existing codes of excellence in both watchmaking and jewellery. The impression of depth exuded by their mineral dial graced with multi-dimensional marquetry inlays makes them veritable works of art, fascinating miniature ecosystems representing poetic and stylised worlds that highlight the virtuoso skills of the artisans in Chopard’s workshops. These Happy Sport watches also offer a vision enabled by high-tech innovation serving to completely reinvent the legendary whirl of Happy Diamonds. Featuring shapes individually redesigned for each of these three editions, the animal ‘mobiles’ perform their weightless dance with unprecedented grace and elasticity, adding more life than ever to the show staged on the dials.

A fragment of eternity on the wrist, interwoven with the major issues of an era; a canvas shaped by an inimitable sense of luminosity and elegance as Chopard presents a majestic new demonstration of its singular sense of aesthetics and ethics through these ultra-exclusive editions of its iconic Happy Sport watch. Three different models, each issued in an eight-piece limited series, raise the art of watchmaking and jewellery to a new pinnacle. The prolific inspiration of Chopard Co-President and Artistic Director Caroline Scheufele highlights her fundamental love of nature and animals as well as Chopard's ongoing commitment to sustainable development.

A wealth of animals and minerals

Happy Sport Métiers d'Art is a source of joy, a veritable elixir encapsulating the values upheld by Chopard, which is continuing to explore the love of life and nature that has consistently permeated its collections. The hummingbird, the polar bear and the sea turtle are three endangered species whose beauty and different ecosystems are majestically celebrated on each of these three models. Precious and semi-precious stones, mother-of-pearl marquetry and gemsetting cast a spell in multi-dimensional layers on the dial and movement of each watch, shaping landscapes of dazzling and mesmerising depth. Framed by a bezel paved with chaton-set diamonds, the dial seems to melt into the light of the precious stones, which in turn spills over onto the likewise full-set 40 mm case.

Hummingbird

The hummingbird, the world’s smallest migratory bird, is a benevolent presence featured in numerous legends. Its long beak enables it to extract nourishing and fertilising pollen from rare flowers. However, the destruction of its natural habitat and of the plant species that feed it, and which it in turn helps flourish, makes it particularly vulnerable to climate change and deforestation. The dial of this Happy Sport therefore invites you to immerse yourself in the Amazonian forest and the treasures of floral biodiversity that are essential to its survival. Against a malachite background, four different levels of gold and orange, red and different shades of mother-of-pearl echo the flamboyant chromatic range and stylised shapes of the exquisite hibiscus flower, whose pistil is made of four heart-shaped diamonds. Textured by two types of opal with green and blue iridescence, a hummingbird flits above this ecosystem, surrounded by three heart-shaped dancing diamonds. The bridges and the micro-rotor of Chopard Calibre 96.23-L visible through the case-back pick up the colours, mineral textures and geometrical shapes of the dial.

Sea turtle

Sea turtles gliding through the water with their majestic breadth, marbled shells and proverbial nonchalance are a living memory, since these animals are believed to have inhabited the oceans for 225 million years. Exuding an aura of playful kindness and protected by a cabochon-cut natural aventurine shell, itself set with diamonds, the ingeniously stylised sea turtle coasts gracefully across the dial of the Happy Sport Métiers d'Art watch. Thanks to a new technical process developed by Chopard, the sea turtle and the three pear-shaped dancing diamonds twirl between the two sapphire crystals as if swimming in a miniature aquarium surrounded by the protectively undulating arms of a protective mother-of-pearl and green opal arborescence. The result recreates the fascinating and soothing sight of seabed plant-life, on several levels and with unprecedented visual depth. The mechanical intricacies of the Chopard 96.23-L movement can also be admired through the case-back, amid a splendid setting of green textured mother-of-pearl and opal marquetry. Just 200 years ago, the oceans were home to millions of turtles, but over the past century, their numbers have seen a steep drop due to beach development, climate change and marine pollution. Industrial-scale fishing is however the main danger, and six of the seven remaining species are on the Red List of Threatened species.

Polar bear

Radiating an aura that matches its size, the power of the polar bear is the stuff of legends. This giant mammal, the tallest and broadest bear in the world, is a companion who has always roamed the realms of the collective imagination: its deep voice, as if emerging from aeons past, along with its majestic and solemn figure, are embedded in myths and legends around the world. Once upon a time in the ice kingdom lived a colossus, now so vulnerable to global warming. The ice sheet that is its home is constantly shrinking over the years. It is this entire ecosystem that Chopard depicts on a splendid blue and green opal dial. Textured mother-of-pearl and invisible-set triangle-cut diamonds trace the ice of the Arctic Circle in an extremely graphic manner featuring varied relief effects. Designed around the geometric shape of the triangle, symbolising perfection and unity, the Happy Sport dial spreads out the canvas of this sparkling landscape as a background for the polar bear ‘mobile’ entirely set with diamonds and holding a pear-shaped diamond in its arms, like a shard of ice lit up by a sunbeam. Together with three other triangular-cut dancing diamonds, this gentle polar bear journeys through a miniature ecosystem reinvented by mineral jewellery magic. The Chopard 96.23-L movement visible through the case-back echoes the dial with its mother-of-pearl bridges and its opal and textured mother-of-pearl micro-rotor.

Weightless dancing gems

Allowing diamonds to move free of any constraint between two sapphire crystals, and through this very movement restore the panache of their original brilliance: such is the brilliant idea that has guided the path of Happy Diamonds and forged a veritable legend over the years. Resolutely focused on research, high technology and design, Chopard presents a major innovation in these three new Happy Sport Métiers d’Art timepieces that completely reinvents the Happy Diamonds choreography and endows their movement with unprecedented quality. A perfectly viscous liquid has been developed to accommodate a new tempo for the diamonds moving between the two crystals, enabling them to whirl with the elastic flexibility of weightless motion. Gazing at this sight brings one face to face with a mesmerising, living and constantly recomposed sense of vibrancy, like snowballs from our childhood days when flakes scattered their magic across an enchanted landscape witnessing their gentle trajectory. One need only recall that wonderful moment in mid-air when a dancer performs a jump; those marvellous seconds of weightlessness when the audience holds its breath and the whole universe seems to be suspended from this body. This is exactly the magical movement captured in the new waltz of dancing diamonds, light as air and unaffected by the laws of gravity. The development of this process notably focused on compensating for the variations in temperature and pressure generated by integrating this new liquid between the two sapphire crystals: a technical feat that testifies to Chopard’s formidable vitality in constantly weaving new ties between the preservation of heritage and the spirit of innovation.

An exceptional in-house calibre

An exceptional movement was required to set this splendid theatre of animal and mineral life in motion. At the heart of this case, magnificently decorated by in-house jewellers, beats a mechanical self-winding movement, Chopard 96.23-L. Resulting from the development of the first calibre (L.U.C 96.01-L) presented by Chopard Manufacture in 1997, this latest innovation is equipped with two series-coupled barrels enabling the watch to accumulate a generous 65-hour power reserve thanks to Chopard Twin technology. It is also fitted with a platinum micro-rotor ensuring perfect winding of the barrels while saving space in the case. Adorned with the same gems as the accompanying dial, the movement is revealed through the exhibition back of the ethical 18-carat gold case, thus revealing the exquisite allure and the quintessence of the watchmaking expertise exercised by Chopard’s artisans. Reaping the rewards of the complementary skills and expertise cultivated by the Maison, these Happy Sport timepieces are a perfect blend of the exquisite beauty, precision and legitimacy that Chopard has built up over the decades. The result is an intricate ballet of complex and virtuoso operations that fade into the background, leaving room for all the light, tender poetry of these Happy Sport Métiers d'Art.