Until quite recently, whenever someone said the name “Swarovski” to me the first thing that popped into my head was a small, crystal mouse. The brand was famous for niche-appeal decorative figures cut from crystal and wasn’t something you’d immediately associate with style, or glamour. The crystal figures had marked the company as a frumpy, unsophisticated affair, one that was later determined to be avoided at all costs.
Thankfully, the company has striven to regain its pride of place within the fashion and interior design worlds. The mouse still exists, in fact it’s always been one of the Swarovski’s best earners, but it’s been supplemented by the arrival of fresher collectables, such as the crystal tiger you see above. That’s all well and good, but it’s in the realm of fashion and film that Swarovski’s raising eyebrows.
Crystallized Swarovski Elements produces loose pieces of cut and coloured crystal. They’re the building blocks of modern, fun glamour. Look around you and you’ll see belts, bags and shoes bedecked in sparkling slivers of light, crystals have become a staple in the modern fashion world and Swarovski is everywhere, be it bags, dresses or shoes. Chances are, if it sparkles, it’s from Austria.
The crystals are made from precision-cut glass, using technology in which Swarovski leads the field and the manufacturing process is shrouded in a veil of secrecy. The factories are off limits to all but a lucky few and the details of how the crystals are cut and pressed are a closely guarded secret. Not only does the cut of the glass impact on the end result, but the company has a wide array of coatings that are applied to the finished product to alter how light reflects from its surface. The company has patented new styles of cuts and continues to roll out new coatings. With the ongoing innovation and secretive nature of the process, there’s little or no chance of Swarovski losing its position at the head of the table.
The events of the past few years have taken the fashion world by surprise. Swarovski have returned to form by harking back to the 1930s and 1950s, when they were suppliers, and often creative muses, to some of fashion’s finest. Crystallized has brought the company bang up to date and back into the public eye. “Swarovski has had an important partnership with the world’s great couture houses – both as a creative partner and a supplier – since its inception,” says Werner Baumgartner, managing director of Swarovski.
Swarovski’s collaboration with designers is, much like their products, multi-faceted. The company produces its own range of prêt-a-porter jewelry under the Atelier Swarovski brand. However, it’s the creative freedom that the crystals afford to designers and brands such as Jimmy Choo, Donna Karan, Vivienne Westwood, the up and coming Hariri & Hariri, or Hiroki Nakamura's label, VISVIM, that’s the key to Swarovski’s role. The crystals lend themselves to myriad applications and designs, meaning that very little, if anything, is off limits.
Swarovski has also recently been spotted in Hollywood wardrobe rooms, Crystallized provided crystals for use in the costumes of 2009’s all-star cast in Nine showing off Swarovski products on the Silver Screen. Prior to that the company embarked on a project with a number of internationally renowned designers to take on the children’s classic The Wizard of Oz. The book’s 70th anniversary saw Dorothy’s famous ruby red slippers up for a radical redesign at the hands of luminaries such as Jimmy Choo. It was a return to form for the company, having supplied the materials for Judy Garland in the 1939 original. They’re certainly not in Kansas anymore.
Within the Middle East Swarovski is working with designers such as Walid Attlah, Souhad Acori and Fatima Abed in addition to the Hariri sisters. Their crystals adorn everything from haute couture pieces to the everyday abaya. Baumgartner talks cryptically of a new “image tool” to be announced in May of this year that will, “provide the industry for traditional garments with fresh ideas to keep the segment exciting”, but gives nothing in the way of details. Secrecy would appear to be a staple of the brand, and with good reason.
The company has certainly transformed itself in recent years. With 2 billion USD in annual sales, the crystal mouse certainly doesn’t fully represent what Swarovski is anymore. The application of crystals is almost limitless, from shoes to chandeliers, and the clamour for their product seems to be on the up across all the areas they’re involved in. It seems that the sparkle is well and truly back.
www.swarovski.com
