With Alpine Eagle, Chopard has created a contemporary sporty-chic collection featuring pure design and sophisticated mechanics. Today, with the Alpine Eagle 41 XP Frozen Summit, the collection welcomes a new model combining the Maison’s watchmaking and jewellery expertise, and whose exceptional refinement has been saluted by the Poinçon de Genève. The 41 mm-diameter case, as well as the entire dial, bezel, crown and integrated bracelet in ethical 18-carat white gold, are set with meticulously cut diamonds. This represented a significant challenge, taking the collection to a new jewellery peak and evoking the celestial beauty of stars reflected on glaciers. Making no compromises in terms of technical expertise, this true collector’s timepiece benefits from the watchmaking savoir-faire of Chopard Manufacture embodied in the ultra-thin L.U.C 96.41-L movement, with automatic winding via a micro-rotor ensuring a 65-hour power reserve.
Artistic crafts: sparkling diamonds enhanced by masterful setting
While the Alpine Eagle collection has already welcomed a family of gemset timepieces, the Alpine Eagle 41 XP Frozen Summit model has now reached a new pinnacle. This veritable collector’s masterpiece showcases the art of gemsetting cultivated by the Maison’s skilled artisans. They have painstakingly recut several hundred diamonds and set them on the case, dial and bezel, as well as on each facet of the crown and each link of the bracelet in ethical 18-carat white gold.
With its graphic shapes and geometry, the baguette cut chosen for these stones is particularly suited to the aesthetics of the Alpine Eagle collection and its relationship with light. In instances where the shape of the baguette-cut gems did not lend itself to that of the surfaces, each diamond was carefully recut to ensure that metal remained visible. Assembling, arranging and setting so many gems of the same brilliance and compatible sizes on such a small timepiece is a real challenge. Through the sparkle of these precious stones, Chopard confirms the collection’s profound inspiration drawn from Nature, celebrated as the greatest architect – with diamonds evoking immaculate glaciers and the luminous beauty of the stars shining down upon them.
“With this timepiece, we combine the expertise of our gemsetters with that of our watchmakers, reflecting our heritage in these two artistic crafts perfected over the course of our history – to which we add our lengthy experience in selecting cut stones. Entirely crafted in our workshops, the Alpine Eagle 41 XP Frozen Summit reflects our appreciation of ultimate sophistication”, explains Chopard’s Co-President Karl-Friedrich Scheufele.
The making of an Alpine Eagle XP 41 Frozen Summit timepiece requires no less than 800 hours’ work calling upon the various skills and crafts exercised within the Manufacture.
L.U.C 96.41-L movement: Chopard Manufacture’s watchmaking expertise at the service of the Alpine Eagle collection
Above and beyond its sophisticated design, the Alpine Eagle 41 XP Frozen Summit model beats to the rhythm of the technical excellence cultivated within Chopard Manufacture’s watchmaking workshops. An evolved version of the first calibre presented by the Manufacture in 1996, the new ultra-thin L.U.C 96.41-L movement features an off-centred micro-rotor in 22-carat gold, whose high inertia ensures efficient winding of two barrels. Stacked in accordance with Chopard Twin technology, while preserving the movement’s overall 3.30 mm thickness, they store the energy required to guarantee a total 65-hour power reserve.
Respectful of watchmaking traditions and skills handed down from generation to generation, the Manufacture’s artisans have lavished the highest degree of refined finishing on this movement. All the bridges have been carefully chamfered and adorned with a Côtes de Genève motif: a wealth of details that can be admired through the transparent case-back and which have met the demanding standards laid down by the authorities responsible for granting the prestigious Poinçon de Genève.
Poinçon de Genève: the hallmark of fine craftsmanship
Throughout its vertically integrated production process, Chopard makes and assembles all the components of its Alpine Eagle collection in-house, from movement to case to bracelet. The entire timepiece is certified by the Poinçon de Genève hallmark guaranteeing the quality and smooth functioning of the watches assembled in the Canton. Stamped on the back of the watch and on the movement’s main bridge, it represents the city of Geneva’s coat-of-arms consisting of a gold key and, above all, an eagle: a symbol not unlike the original inspiration for the Alpine Eagle collection. Appearing in the wake of the Alpine Eagle Flying Tourbillon and Alpine Eagle 41 XPS models, this Alpine Eagle 41 XP Frozen Summit is the third watch in the collection to be awarded this prestigious label of excellence.
Optimal proportions
The proportions of the Alpine Eagle 41 XP Frozen Summit have been optimised thanks to its thin movement: maintaining a total 41-millimetre diameter, the gemset case is just 9 mm thick, while the flanks and bezel have been trimmed down compared with a classic Alpine Eagle 41 model and thus provide a wider opening onto the diamond-paved dial. These exquisitely pleasing proportions, which Chopard reserves for exceptional models, endow the timepiece with an aura of graceful elegance.
Alpine Eagle: reinterpreting an icon
Envisioned by three generations of gentlemen in the Scheufele family, the Alpine Eagle collection is a modern reinterpretation of the St. Moritz watch, the first horological creation designed by Chopard’s now Co-President, Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, in the late 1970s. With its pure, assertive design, Alpine Eagle enriches this heritage with powerful inspiration drawn from Nature. A round case with raised stylised flanks, a crown engraved with a compass rose, a bezel with eight functional indexed screws: Alpine Eagle is a token of refined and resolutely contemporary elegance.
