Chopard

Chopard is a Swiss maker of watches and jewelry, headquartered in Geneva. Louis-Ulysse Chopard founded it in Sonvilier, in the Swiss Jura, in 1860. The company moved to Geneva in 1937, and in 1963 it was sold to Karl Scheufele III, a goldsmith and watchmaker from Pforzheim, Germany; the Scheufele family still owns it.

In 1976 Chopard began making watches with free-floating diamonds behind sapphire crystal, and in the 1980s it added men's sports watches. In 1996 it opened its own movement manufacture in Fleurier, in the Canton of Neuchâtel, for its high-end watches; before that, its movements were assembled from third-party parts. Chopard has sponsored the Mille Miglia car rally since 1988 and makes the Palme d'Or trophy for the Cannes Film Festival. It produces around 75,000 watches a year, including diamond-set jewelry watches and men's sports watches.