Chopard

Louis-Ulysse Chopard, a farmer-watchmaker's son, founded his business in Sonvilier, in the Swiss Jura, in 1860, aged 24, choosing to make and sell finished watches rather than work for the dealers who collected movements from home workers. He travelled to sell in Eastern Europe, Russia and Scandinavia, and Chopard watches reached the court of Tsar Nicholas II.

After his death in 1915 his son Paul-Louis and grandson Paul-André ran the firm, which moved to La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1921 and to Geneva in 1937, where its movements could carry the Geneva Seal.

With no family successor, Paul-André Chopard sold the company in 1963 to Karl Scheufele III, a goldsmith and watchmaker from Pforzheim whose family firm, Eszeha, needed Swiss movements. Under the Scheufeles the house moved to Meyrin in 1974 and, in 1976, introduced watches with diamonds that move freely between two sapphire crystals, the basis of Happy Diamonds. The 1980s brought sports watches and the first boutiques in Hong Kong, Geneva and Vienna.

Caroline Scheufele designed the first Chopard jewellery piece, a clown pendant with floating diamonds, in 1985, and jewellery became a major part of the business. Her brother Karl-Friedrich opened the company's own movement manufacture in Fleurier in 1996, producing the L.U.C 1.96, and later co-founded the Fleurier Quality Foundation and revived the Ferdinand Berthoud name.

Chopard has sponsored the Mille Miglia since 1988 and partnered the Cannes Film Festival since 1998, where it makes the Palme d'Or. Caroline Scheufele redesigned the trophy in 1997.

Since 2001 she and Karl-Friedrich have been co-presidents of the family-owned company. Chopard has used Fairmined-certified gold since 2013 and promotes responsibly sourced materials.