Chopard’s expanding universe

Chopard is known as the “Artisan of Emotions”. Established in 1860, the Swiss brand started as a watchmaker and is today renowned for creating luxury timepieces and high jewellery with precision craftsmanship, innovative creativity and timeless elegance.

Chopard was acquired by Scheufele’s parents in 1963 and began making its unique mark in the watch community, notably in 1976 when it introduced its first “Happy Diamonds” watch — a first of its kind, a watch dial with diamonds freely moving, seemingly dancing happily around the dial. It became a hit among collectors and the fashionable set and to this day remains Chopard’s signature design.

Scheufele’s creative genius emerged when she was a teenager. Inspired by the Happy Diamonds concept, she sketched and articulated a clown pendant, with its belly filled with free-moving diamonds and coloured stones. Her father was impressed and had it made as a Christmas present for Scheufele. (To our pleasant surprise, as Scheufele told us this story, she reached for her necklace and showed us the very same clown pendant.) In 1985, the Happy Clown went into production and became Chopard’s first jewellery collection.

Scheufele’s visit to Singapore culminated on Oct 15 with a sparkling showcase of “Caroline’s Universe: The 2025 Red Carpet Collection” at the Raffles Sentosa. This collection was first launched at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival in May.

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The 2025 Red Carpet Collection comprises 78 necklaces, rings, earrings, bracelets, and jewellery watches crafted by Chopard’s Haute Joaillerie ateliers in Geneva. It highlights Scheufele’s personal universe in a unique and cosmic way.

When asked about her inspiration for this collection, she says she started with what she loves and put a twist on them. “I love nature: plants, animals, the universe, the stars, the moon, and planets. It sort of all came together, and it’s my inner interpretation.”

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Featuring animals, flowers, gems, the heart, and more, Caroline’s Universe personifies the creative spirit behind Chopard’s most imaginative Haute Joaillerie collection.

Animals featured in this collection include a peacock, penguins, a dolphin, her Cavalier King Charles spaniel Byron, and a hippopotamus — an unexpected choice in the world of high jewellery. Scheufele notes that in 2010, Chopard, then celebrating its 150th anniversary, launched its Animal World High Jewellery Collection, comprising 150 pieces featuring a variety of animals. “I respect all animals on the planet,” she explains.

Cosmos-inspired necklaces feature one with a black diamond panther pendant balancing on a crescent moon illuminated by white diamonds; and a diamond and emerald snake, paying tribute to the current Year of the Snake in the Chinese lunar calendar.

The Ice Cube Collection

Since 1999, the Ice Cube Collection has embodied minimalist elegance through a single powerful motif. The ice cube, with its angular, faceted and clean geometric lines, serves as the simple, yet perfect inspiration for the talented artisans at Maison Chopard to work their magical craftsmanship and designs into a modern, dazzling aesthetic.

“Ice Cube has always represented purity and precision,” says Scheufele. “But here, we pushed its language even further — into volume, movement, and expression. I wanted the pieces to feel wearable yet unexpected, like modern art for the body.”

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This year, Chopard heralds a new chapter in its iconic Ice Cube collection with daring proportions, modular versatility and sculptural brilliance. Embodying this new Ice Cube spirit is Bella Hadid, Chopard’s Global brand ambassador and face of the “Sculpted by Light” campaign. Hadid succeeded Julia Roberts as brand ambassador in September 2024. In this campaign, she brings the new Haute Joaillerie creations to life against an ethereal urban skyline. This backdrop mirrors the collection’s exploration of architecture, geometry, reflection, and self-expression.
“I’ve been a longtime admirer of Chopard, given its gorgeous craftsmanship and commitment to sustainability. Its designs are so empowering and always give me a sense of confidence whenever I’m lucky enough to wear one of its pieces,” says Hadid.

In this latest iteration, the iconic Ice Cube Collection is reinterpreted with bold geometry. Its versatility and modern, architectural spirit aim to have a broader appeal to the younger generation, both male and female. It’s for our “clients of tomorrow”, says Scheufele.

At the heart of the collection lies a one-of-a-kind modular necklace composed of nine rows of articulated cubes in a mix of ethical rose and white gold. The rows can be worn together or detached in sets of three. Across this captivating necklace, there are varying cube sizes and heights, some mirror-polished while others are paved with diamond brilliants.

Bracelets and a multifunctional brooch display cubes of varying heights, akin to a city skyline of glass and steel in shimmering light. The immaculate polishing of these uneven surfaces showcases Chopard’s exceptional in-house savoir-faire.

Luxury with a conscience

Scheufele also touched on Chopard’s commitment to ethical and sustainable practices as a core value of the company, championed by herself and her brother (and co-president) Karl-Friedrich. Since 2018, Chopard has used 100% ethically sourced gold for both its watches and jewellery, and in 2023, it committed to using Lucent Steel (a metal alloy made from about 80% recycled steel) for all its watches and jewellery. “Looking back, it is good that Chopard started this earlier,” says Scheufele. “But then, coming from Switzerland, it is also a bit normal as we respect nature a lot.”

As the interview concluded, Scheufele reached for her mobile phone and shared some photos of her dogs. She now has six: Byron, the famous King Charles Cavalier, who has accompanied Scheufele to Cannes for years and whom many consider a “Cannes mascot”; two younger King Charles Cavaliers named Micky and Mouse; a Labrador called Einstein; and two Leonberger dogs. She misses them when she travels, but is happy that there is doggie harmony in the household. “They get along, which is good,” she says.

Scheufele is certainly expanding Chopard’s universe with her joyful imagination and inspired creations, beautifully expressed in the 2025 Red Carpet and Ice Cube collections.

When asked where she finds her energy from, she enthuses: “I like what I like, and I’m passionate about what I do.” She feels blessed and thankful for being able to work with such beautiful gems so expressively and create wearable sparkle.

The stars are indeed aligned in Scheufele’s universe.

Chopard and the Cannes Film Festival

Chopard has a long, enduring partnership with the Cannes International Film Festival as its official partner for over 27 years. In 1997, Scheufele was invited to redesign the iconic Palme d’Or trophy, and Chopard remains the official maker of this prestigious trophy. This esteemed partnership naturally marks Chopard as a red-carpet jeweller to the stars.
Since 2007, Chopard has celebrated its partnership by matching the number of jewellery pieces in its Red Carpet collection to the Cannes Film Festival’s edition number. So, for this year’s 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, Chopard unveiled 78 jewellery pieces.

This tradition was started by Scheufele in 2007, when Chopard launched 60 pieces to mark the 60th anniversary. She relates that her father, at the time, had advised her to unveil 5 to 10 pieces each year. Scheufele refused, saying that it was not a challenge, and chose to create and unveil the same number of pieces to match and mark the edition of the Cannes Film Festival. Next year will be the 79th edition.“Now, [the 79 pieces] has become a challenge,” she quips.

To add to the challenge, Scheufele also unveils at the Cannes Festival an equivalent number of couture dresses to match its jewellery pieces. She launched her couture line, called “Caroline’s Couture”, in 2023.

I asked if there was anything that surprised her about designing dresses compared to designing jewellery. She jokes, “First of all, I need a bigger paper to draw the dress…” Coming from the world of jewellery, the obvious difference, she notes, is in the materials used in the process.

An encounter with Elizabeth Taylor

In reminiscing about Cannes, Scheufele shared a memorable encounter with legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor, who was a big jewellery lover and collector. One day, on Taylor’s request, Scheufele went to her villa to present a jewellery collection. Scheufele recalls displaying her collection on a small coffee table, and Taylor’s dog jumped on the table and walked all over the jewellery. Scheufele, an animal lover, was so concerned that the dog would accidentally swallow one of the emeralds!

This created an immediate and natural bond between the two, and Taylor wanted to show Scheufele her personal jewellery collection. Taylor then took out her jewellery collection and placed the pieces on top of Scheufele’s jewellery on the coffee table, mixing them all up in the process. Scheufele was not sure she could tell which was which! Elizabeth casually told Scheufele not to worry, and if something is missing when she goes back, “just invoice it”.