hopard is a rare thing: a watchmaker that belongs to a family whose roots are in jewellery. The dynasty originated with Karl Scheufele I (1877-1941), who as a young man learned his trade in Pforzheim, the heartland of German goldsmithing and jewellery-making. Having lost his parents at the age of 11, he was placed in an orphanage, but sometimes life’s blows can become opportunities: Karl Friedrich von Baden-Durlach, Grand Duke of Baden, founder of the orphanage, believed that his wards should be given a profession and so he brought watchmakers from Paris and Geneva to instruct them. Karl Scheufele was one of these young apprentices.

The freshly minted watchmaker chose to stay in Pforzheim and in 1904 established his company, Karl Scheufele, crafting gem-set watches in addition to selling fine jewellery under the Eszeha brand name. Chopard’s archives for the 1920s include records of the diamond-set models which earned Eszeha its reputation as a virtuoso maker of jewellery watches whose delicate beauty chimed with the Belle Epoque aesthetic.

1964 - Ladies’ wristwatch, white gold, silvered dial, articulated bracelet, 102 diamonds (8.32 carats), 12 baguette-cut diamonds (2.26 carats), mechanical movement. Featured in an advertisement from 1964 with the text “Maîtres de la montre-bijou, (“Masters of the jewellery watch”).

Not only was Karl Scheufele I a master of his art; he was also an enthusiastic innovator who in 1912 imagined an ingenious system for clipping a pocket watch to a gold chain, which could then be worn as a pendant or, a rarity at that time, on the wrist. The company prospered, thanks to the quality of its production but also because it embraced the style of each new era, such as the 1920s when Eszeha’s titanium and diamond watches elevated the geometric shapes of Art Deco into miniature works of art.

1970 - Ladies’ wristwatch, yellow gold, champagne dial, Milanese mesh bracelet, 32 diamonds. This watch is the inspiration for today’s L’Heure du Diamant.

1970 - Ladies’ wristwatch, yellow gold, opal dial, 42 diamonds.

1973 - Ladies’ wristwatch, white gold, opal dial, 153 diamonds.

1973 - Ladies’ wristwatch, white gold, dial set with 66 diamonds and turquoises, articulated bracelet set with 432 diamonds and turquoises.

The watchmaker-jeweller has passed from father to son, first to Karl Scheufele II at the end of the Second World War, in 1945, then, on his retirement in 1958, to his son Karl Scheufele III. Aged just 20, this talented goldsmith and watchmaker assumed the reins alongside his wife Karin, a trained gemmologist. The young couple wished to acquire a Swiss Manufacture for the business and in 1963 bought Chopard, established in 1860 by Louis-Ulysse Chopard. Together, they would give it a new dimension.

Some ten years before the launch of the much-feted Happy Diamonds, celebrated for the precious stones that move freely around the dial, Karl and Karin Scheufele continued to uphold the family tradition with wonderfully modern jewellery watches. “Modern” is a word so overused as to have lost almost all meaning, but in these early 1960s it contained the promise of a bright future. Chopard’s ornamental stone dials came in every colour, a perfect match for the bold, bright fashions of the Sixties, while case shapes mirrored artistic currents such as kinetic art. Such creativity won Chopard 15 Golden Rose of Baden-Baden awards – rightly considered the Oscars of the jewellery world.

Karl and Karin Scheufele 1965-66

Karl and Karin Scheufele entrusted their gold watch bracelets to the engravers at their workshops in Pforzheim. They put their skills to work to create what would rapidly become a signature: the “bark” motif, obtained through an accumulation of ridges carved in the bracelet until the links disappear and the metal gives the illusion of tree bark. Examples of models with a bark-motif bracelet appear in the first catalogue sent to retailers, in 1964, a year after Chopard’s acquisition by Karl and Karin Scheufele; a testament to their earliest creations.

Adverts for Chopard’s watches 1970-1975

As a professional gemmologist, Karin Scheufele insisted that a Chopard watch be as much a jewel as a timepiece, and that the impressive diamonds adorning the bezel be seen in all their splendour. Karl Scheufele responded with the crown setting, a technique that remains a hallmark of Chopard and which, by allowing even more light to ricochet through the stones, increases their sparkle. V-shaped prongs support the stones like an inverted ogive or a piece of ethereal and invisible lace.

In a tribute to the house’s origins, in 2012 Chopard’s artistic director and co-president Caroline Scheufele returned to this family legacy and imagined a line of diamond-set jewellery watches, which she named L’Heure du Diamant. One of them would go on to win the Jewellery Watch prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève the following year. Then, in 2014, a jewellery collection of the same name was unveiled.

L’Heure du Diamant, 26mm case in ethical 18k rose gold, bezel in ethical 18-carat rose gold set with brilliant-cut diamonds (totalling 2.20 carats), Chopard 10.01-C mechanical automatic movement, malachite dial, bracelet in ethical 18k rose gold engraved with the iconic bark motif. ©Buonomo & Cometti

Watchmakers have long considered that a gem-set watch can be appreciated for its beauty alone and content itself with a quartz movement. Not Chopard. As a Manufacture producing its own calibres, there was no question of anything but a mechanical movement, created especially for these precious ladies’ models.

At the heart of L’Heure du Diamant lies the ultra-thin Chopard 10.01-C calibre, one of the smallest manual-winding movements on the market, introduced in 2024 and measuring just 15.7mm in diameter and 2.9mm in thickness.

This year is one of renewal for the collection with the introduction of 12 watches, each distinguished by a different ornamental stone. In a delightful mise en abyme, they are sold in a round presentation box, arranged like the 12 numerals on a dial. These precious timepieces, set with 2.2 carats of brilliant-cut diamonds on the bezel, shout out to the colourful hard stone dials that Chopard introduced in the 1960s, with a contemporary twist.

L’Heure du Diamant Moonphase watch, the first complication in the L’Heure du Diamant collection. A new Chopard Manufacture mechanical movement, calibre 09.02C, with automatic winding displays the phases of the moon with a 42-hour power reserve. 18k white gold case (35.75 mm), Dial in midnight blue aventurine glass. Crown in ethical 18k white gold set with a briolette-cut diamond. Bezel and lugs in ethical 18k white gold set with brilliant-cut diamonds (3.86 carats). Crown setting enhances the brilliance of the stones by maximising light penetration. Developed by Karl Scheufele, the V-shaped prongs of this setting support the diamonds like an invisible lacework base.

Each diamond has been sourced from partners that comply with the house’s strict ethical standards and which respect the principles for transparency set out by the Kimberley Process and the World Diamond Council. Chopard is a pioneer in ethical sourcing, having embarked on its Journey to Sustainable Luxury in 2013. Additionally, since 2018 it has used only ethically produced gold for its watches and jewellery.

Because they are crafted from ornamental stones, whose beauty is entirely the work of nature, no two dials in the L’Heure du Diamant collection are the same, giving each watch its unique character. Whether fashioned from white, black or pink opal, carnelian, tiger’s eye, onyx, jade, malachite, mother-of-pearl marquetry, agate, turquoise or a snow-set diamond pavé, each dial has its own virtues which the owner of the set can choose according to the moment. In different cultures, carnelian symbolises good health, jade brings luck, tiger’s eye is associated with strength while turquoise stands for protection and abundance.

L’Heure du Diamant, 26mm case in ethical 18k white gold, bezel in ethical 18k white gold set with brilliant-cut diamonds (totalling 2.20 carats), Chopard 10.01-C mechanical automatic movement, mother-of-pearl dial, bracelet in ethical 18k white gold engraved with the iconic bark motif.

Two watches in the set are mounted on a gold bracelet, one white gold and one rose gold, each decorated with bark engraving. Still today, the gold bracelets for Chopard watches are assembled and hand-engraved at the Karl Scheufele workshops in Pforzheim. Thanks to an extraordinary mastery of the engraver’s art, the joints between the links disappear to reveal a richly textured effect that catches the light.

L’Heure du Diamant earrings in ethical 18k white gold and diamonds

Because women nurture a special relationship with the moon, the first complication to enter the L’Heure du Diamant collection is, appropriately, a moonphase display, driven by calibre 09.02-C, an in-house automatic movement. Presented with an aventurine dial and crown-set diamonds, it is worn on an alligator strap.

L’Heure du Diamant “Toi et Moi” ring in ethical 18k white gold and diamonds

This moonphase watch is for women who enjoy mechanical complications while appreciating the beauty of a piece of jewellery that also mirrors multiple facets of time: the circle of hours and minutes, lunar time and, by the grace of diamonds, eternity.