Chopard

Swiss manufacturer and retailer of luxury watches, jewellery and accessories

Le Petit Fils de L. U. Chopard & Cie S. A., commonly known as Chopard, is a Swiss manufacturer and retailer of luxury watches, jewellery and accessories. Founded in 1860 by Louis Ulysse Chopard in Sonvilier, Switzerland, Chopard has been owned by the Scheufele family of Germany since 1963. Chopard is best known for making high quality Swiss watches and jewellery, and its clients have included Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. The company is headquartered in Geneva and has a site in Fleurier, Canton of Neuchâtel, that manufactures watch movements.

The company founder, Louis Ulysse Chopard, was a Swiss watchmaker who grew up in Sonvilier, a town in Swiss Jura. In 1860, he established his L. U. C. manufacturing company in Sonvilier, having observed that it was more profitable to market a finished watch than to just make the mechanical movement. After Louis Ulysse's death in 1915, the company was taken over by his son Paul Louis and grandson Paul André. In 1963, having no children wishing to continue in the business, Paul André Chopard sold it to Karl Scheufele III, a German goldsmith and watchmaker from Pforzheim, who was seeking a watch movement manufacturer exclusively for his own business.

In 1974, the Chopard factory moved from the center of Geneva to Meyrin Geneva and in 1976 the company started making watches that contained its signature free floating diamond behind sapphire glass. In the 1980s, the company expanded into making sports watches for men and diamond jewellery for women. In 2014, Chopard recorded sales of CHF800m (US$915m) and had roughly 2,000 employees worldwide, of whom 900 were working in Switzerland. In 2015, French actress Marion Cotillard designed a bracelet for Chopard's Green Carpet Collection made of ethical Fairmined certified gold. In December 2018, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) released a report assigning environmental ratings to 15 major watch manufacturers and jewelers in Switzerland. Chopard was given a below average environmental rating as "Lower Midfield", suggesting that the manufacturer has only taken a few actions addressing the impact of its manufacturing activities on the environment and climate change. In 2020, Cotillard designed her own sustainable jewelry collection for Chopard entitled "Ice Cube Capsule". She designed seven items curated from Fairmined certified ethical gold and diamonds. The company produces around 75,000 timepieces and 75,000 jewelleries each year, and is an active member of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH.

A Chopard "Happy Diamond" wristwatch was sold in auction by Christie's for around US$1.67 million (CHF 1,685,000) in Geneva on November 10, 2015. The watch has quartz movement and carries a pink marquise cut diamond, weighing approximately 2.62 carats, and a blue marquise cut diamond, weighing approximately 1.48 carat. The Cannes Film Festival since 1998, sponsoring the Trophée Chopard prize and making the Palme d’Or trophy. The Historic Grand Prix of Monaco as official timekeeper since 2002.