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As is customary for Tyrol’s most famous mountain legend – the Swarovski family enterprise – it is worth starting the story with the shine of the polished faces of the crystals, now known in all corners of the world. Swarovski products at one time turned the understanding of the value of diamonds on its head, putting polished and processed ordinary glass on a par with these jewels. Thus, thanks to sophisticated jewelry work, Swarovski crystals moved from ordinary jewelry to the category of jewelry.
Here, it would be appropriate to begin the story with the tourist attraction, the Swarovski World Museum complex, built in honor of the centenary of the Swarovski company in the small provincial Austrian settlement of Wattens, a Tyrolean community in the Innsbruck-Land district. An ordinary town at the foot of the Alps, spread out on the banks of the Inn River, surrounded by ski resorts within reach, at the end of the last century received a priceless bonus from the Swarovski family, becoming a natural tourist attraction in popularizing the crystals born here. This is how the legends of the mountain Tyrol are formed when the current history of the unique and mysterious world of Swarovski crystals develops and sparkles with new polished edges before the eyes of many generations.
Telling banal things about the invaluable role of Swarovski in popular world culture is a hopeless and ungrateful activity. Over the centuries, the Swarovski brand has proven that it has already become an integral part of this culture. Culture, when for the first time in the forties of the last century, the Hollywood actress, the superstar of that time, Marlene Dietrich, in the movie “Blonde Venus,» first appeared on the cinema screens in costumes decorated with Swarovski crystals. The world saw that the impossible could become possible thanks to Swarovski.
In the fifties of the last century, Swarovski crystals were tried on by another great actress of the century – Marilyn Monroe, who, performing the famous serenade for the birthday of American President J.F. Kennedy on the stage of Madison Square Garden, wore a dress decorated with almost three thousand Swarovski crystals. This outfit was later valued at over one million two hundred thousand US dollars and sold at auction.
At that time, the prominent designers of the century, Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, considered it an honor to use Swarovski crystals in their collections. Moreover, Swarovski Group has always supported young and talented youth. For this purpose, the Swarovski Collective was launched in the zero years of the current century. Thanks to Swarovski, more than one hundred and fifty young designers were able to receive help, and the company itself took a direct part in implementing the best-proposed ideas. One of the young talents of this project was the designer Alexander McQueen, who even today uses Crystal Mesh Swarovski in his spring-summer collection.
The beginning of the current century was remembered for the actresses’ costumes decorated with Swarovski crystals in Baz Luhrmann’s musical Moulin Rouge. Then Swarovski won an Oscar in the Best Costume Design category.
At this time, the company made a real breakthrough in the fashion world, offering designers a new Crystal Fabric technology – a material wholly covered with crystals that can be sewn, ironed, and glued to jeans, leather, velvet, silk, and the like.
What else can be added here? An exclusive collaboration with the famous couturier Jean-Paul Gaultier, who created a line of jewelry and crystals for the company, or the choice of supermodel Karla Kloss as brand ambassador for Swarovski? Against this background, receiving a certificate from the Responsible Jewelry Council was a simple statement confirming the role of Swarovski in developing and popularizing world culture.
At the same time, Swarovski’s masterpieces have world significance in history and everyday life. In this context, we will mention the new Xilion cutting system developed and put into production, thanks to which Swarovski crystals received the maximum saturated shine with fabulous light effects. In confirmation of this, on New Year’s Eve near the Rockefeller Center, Swarovski specialists installed a star made of twenty-five thousand crystals with a million polished faces on the Christmas tree. This also applies to creating a ten-meter-long crystal curtain made of ten thousand crystals when the stage for the Oscar nomination was decorated.
The brand of the Swarovski family was started by Daniel Swarovski, who was born in the middle of the nineteenth century in a small mountain village in Northern Bohemia, where glassblowers and masters of cheap glassware lived in almost every yard. The parents’ family was similar to the neighbors and was interrupted by small side jobs of grinding glass and applying facets to workpieces, imitating diamond cutting.
While studying to be an engineer in Paris, the young man, while studying the possibilities of electromechanics, was struck by the idea of constructing the world’s first electric machine for cutting and grinding glass and crystal. A few years later, he put this idea into practice. His invention opened up new possibilities in glass processing and made it possible to make a high-quality imitation of precious stones from ordinary crystals.
The choice to start the first factory of the future empire was made in favor of the small Austrian village of Wattens, mainly due to well-developed trade routes and the possibility of installing an inexpensive hydroelectric plant in the mountains of Tirol to reduce the cost of production. Then, at the end of the nineteenth century, Daniel and his partners founded the Swarovski company, which paved the way for the dynasty of glassblowers to become a world empire.
Before Swarovski, no one could create penny rhinestones from ordinary quartz sand, sure, water, and soda, equal to natural diamonds in their shine and cut. At the same time, the Edelweiss flower was chosen for the first official logo. The flower, which symbolizes the thirst for life in difficult conditions, purity, and indomitable character, unites climbers and points to the Austrian origin. Swarovski products in the center of world fashion in Paris were known then as “Pierres Taillé de Tyrol.” Later, a crystal appeared in the logo of the Swarovski brand as a symbol of quality with the image of a swan. Purity, loyalty, pride, grace.
In the marriage of Daniel Swarovski and Maria Weiss, three sons were born, who continued the family business and, over time, expanded it and added other exciting productions. At the beginning of the last century, its factory for glass production was built, which made it possible to reduce the price of products significantly. At the same time, the sons understood that business is always based on demand. Taking this into account, Tyrolit, a company for the production of grinding and drilling tools, was created under the auspices of Swarovski. Twenty years later, Swareflex was designed to produce overpasses and other road products. In the mid-fifties, family crystals were used to make high-precision optics in the new company Swarovski Optik, which is still a leader in this field.
What is essential in the Swarovski crystal world? Family. For more than a century, the family business has been in the hands of one family, as well as the secret of the Swarovski jewelry manufacturing technology.
Daniel Swarovski lived almost ninety-five years and made reasonable provisions for the future. After his death, grandson Manfred developed a new technology for the production of crystals that shimmer in all the colors of the rainbow, which gave a new impetus to the expansion of the family business in the direction of chandeliers and tableware, and under the established trademark Sylver Crystal, the creation and production of crystal figurines for collections began.
As time passes, the policy of the Swarovski family business remains unchanged – creating high-quality and affordable jewelry for everyone, on par with diamonds. The company’s current owner – Daniela’s great-great-granddaughter Nadi Swarovski – is guided by this motto. The brightest representative of the well-known family is the singer and TV presenter Victoria Swarovski, one of the most beautiful women in Austria. Innovation, support of young designers, charity, environmental, and other initiatives were inherited by her. She launched the Swarovski Collective development program, launched the Waterschool educational project, and implemented the idea of a new Atelier Swarovski jewelry line, which became a creative platform for famous designers.
It is impossible to determine the value of the Swarovski company in a concise overview. Correctly chosen direction of business, management, development of science and progress, feeling and miscalculation of the market, the ability to predict its conjuncture and take risks. And, of course, the ability to create, develop, and maintain a family business of a large empire that has been afloat for the second century. The numbers confirm this. Currently, Swarovski has seventy-five factories and nineteen subsidiaries located in more than thirty countries around the world, where more than ten thousand employees work.
According to the results for 2022, the sales volume of the Austrian family firm “Swarovski Crystal Business” increased by ten percent and brought in more than one billion eight hundred thousand euros.
And all these years, Swarovski has been working on quality and reputation. For example, all documentation and tools used for this product are destroyed after the manufacture of collectible products, according to the company’s rules.
And one more. The secrets of crystal production here are passed down from generation to generation. This is even though the standard Swarovski collection includes more than one hundred thousand stones of various sizes and shapes with its history of diamond-cutting rocks, the secret of which the competitors have yet to be able to solve. And many people want to be in this market. The excellent shine of Swarovski stones depends not only on the raw materials but also on the precise grinding and polishing of each facet of the rhinestones, clarity, and sharpness, the effect of enhancing the light flow, and, of course, the particular glue that is used to attach the rhinestones.
Swarovski crystals are characterized by purity, shine, and brightness, which puts them next to expensive diamonds. They are without defects, solid and resistant to scratches, environmentally safe, and do not harm the skin. They are in everything – in necklaces, rings, earrings, bracelets, inlays of things, etc. And most importantly, the price for Swarovski products is affordable for everyone. The company’s founder considered this factor when starting the business and gave people what they dreamed of – prestige, luxury, and status.
Towards the end of the last millennium, to celebrate the centenary of Swarovski’s founding, a multimedia project by the artist Andre Heller, a museum complex – Kristallwelten, “The World of Swarovski,” was implemented in the city of Wattens, which immediately became one of the main tourist spots in Tyrol.
The rich imagination of the architect designed the complex in the form of a vast fairy-tale giant sprawled on the lawn and inviting visitors to his cave despite the waterfall flowing from his mouth.
Inside are seven halls connected by crystal corridors with the appropriate theme and meaning. Each room and its passages are separate compositions lined with crystals, art objects of iconic designers and artists. Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Niki de Saint Phalle, Yaei Kusama, etc.
There are many crystal treasures in the theatrical caves, among which one can distinguish a large crystal of three hundred and ten thousand carats weighing more than sixty kilograms and a miniature one, less than a millimeter in size, which can only be seen under a microscope.
They remembered the children here, for whom they offered to play in the fabulous glass tower, ride the slide, and walk through the labyrinth.
More than seven hectares of garden with a labyrinth around the giant deserve special attention. Practically, it is a garden of art plantings and landscape installations. Nearby is a pool with encrusted clouds, which cost eight hundred thousand crystals.
At the finish line, there is a shop with various Swarovski souvenirs.
Swarovski is a Klondike of ideas and unexpected solutions and an innovation locomotive. This is a unique enterprise with which well-known companies and specialists consider it an honor to work. In recent years, interest in the brand has been maintained thanks to new jewelry collections, the development of the concept of retail sales, and the implementation of creative advertising campaigns. This applies in particular to the collaboration of Aquazzura and BMW and the signing of a ten-year license agreement with EssilorLuxottica.
When you enter a jewelry store, you will be convinced of this from the first look at the window. The choice is huge and will satisfy both a solid businessman and an ordinary housewife. Price, quality, beauty.
If you want to decorate your outfit elegantly, pay attention to the collection of crystal necklaces. Creative design, gold or silver plating, the best crystals, different styles and designs. Want to improve your mood? Choose a women’s or men’s bracelet in pure or rose gold and silver. Will you pay attention to bracelets with crystals? Maybe earrings? Classics or bold creative solutions? Pusets, drops, rings, or pointed cuffs with piercings or clips. Plated in gold, silver, or sterling silver?
Classics of the genre – pearls of the highest quality for those for whom elegance has been recovered in time.
Of course, in contrast, fashionistas can choose spectacular earrings of various designs here – from original chandelier earrings to massive and large rings.
Watches from Swarovski fascinate with the variety and elegance of styles, including the brilliance of the crystal. It may be the Octea Lux Chrono with a cut bezel exclusive to Swarovski watches. Or add color by purchasing a watch in a color scheme.
At the same time, Swarovski offers gifts for all tastes. For many years, decorations for the interior, tableware, glasses, vases, wedding gifts, talismans, romantic figurines, and other things will give warm memories of the time when you could appreciate the priceless.
The best choice for children and parents, the Swarovski Museum, is the fabulous collectible crystal characters and figurines. From zodiac signs to various teddy bears and collectible series such as Mickey and Friends, Iron Man, Disney characters, and more.
How can you lure a picky tourist to a small provincial town in an area of ten square kilometers with a population of no more than ten thousand people? Even though the natural diamond paradise Swarovski Crystal Worlds is located nearby, with fabulous caves, exhibitions, and creative solutions for children’s recreation?
Nevertheless, there is something to see here. There are several fascinating museums. The Museum of the Typewriter allows you to visit several hundred old exhibits. In the small Wattens museum, get acquainted with the history of the development of the market town, famous countrymen, and the annals of events that happened and are happening. A unique role is given to the theme of the transformation of a farming village in Tyrol into an industrial town. There are certain artifacts, history, images, and sound.
In the city, you can see the architecture, the church of St. Mary and the old parish church of Lawrence, sawn church – Sägekirche, Wattens town hall.
You can visit a small park of legends and look at mythological sculptures under the open sky.
Fans will be proud to talk about a local celebrity – their professional football club “Tyrol,” whose history begins in the thirties of the last century and which plays in the Austrian Bundesliga.
They occasionally mention the exotic local production of thin paper for making cigarettes.
And, of course, walks along narrow streets with cozy cafes, landscapes carved on wood, clean air, mountain rivers, and the incredible beauty of the lake.
At the same time, it should be noted that from the first days of the opening of Swarovski production in this city, the company actively participated in developing culture and sports in the city.
Swarovski is a company that lives today and thinks about tomorrow. In its Austrian production, almost forty percent of the energy comes from renewable sources, and nearly eighty percent of the production water is recycled and returned. At the enterprise in the Alps, energy produced only at a hydroelectric plant is used for crystal processing. Since the beginning of the current century, the company has launched the Watersch for Ool investment program to optimize water resources and provide and acquire education on managing water resources and constructing sanitary facilities in schools. The company always declares that it can only change the fashion and jewelry industry with such approaches. All technologies must meet the standards of sustainable development.
