Who says ladies’ watches have to be teeny and cutesy? As women seek bolder, gender-neutral looks, luxury timepieces from Audemars Piguet, Chopard, Hublot and Rolex make timely trends
- Pretty Woman Julia Roberts is the face of Chopard’s Happy Sport collection, launched in 1993 and inspiring a new generation of timepieces that fed into the mood for female empowerment
- With gender-neutral designs making a splash, Rolex, Ulysse Nardin, Breguet and Hublot are catching the mood with rainbow bezels, floral-motif dials and colourful straps
The incredible smile of Julia Roberts, the actress who is the face of Chopard’s Happy Sport and its latest models, says a lot about the joyful mood those free-floating diamonds inspire as they whizz around between the dial and outer sapphire crystal of this iconic sports watch. Roberts personifies the joie de vivre motto of the Happy Sport collection, which was launched in 1993, just three years after she made her name in Pretty Woman.
The watch, with its dancing diamonds on a stainless steel bracelet, was considered a radical innovation. It was the first design for ladies using stainless steel, a versatile material that had transformed watchmaking in the 1970s due to its stylishness, durability and stability, but hitherto had been confined to muscular men’s watches. Chopard democratised that, provocatively combining the industrial toughness of steel with the glamour and hardness of diamonds for a new generation of timepieces that fed into the mood for female empowerment.