Swarovski


Swarovski is an Austrian producer of glass based in Wattens, Tyrol. It was founded in 1895 by Daniel Swarovski.
The company is split into three major industry areas: the Swarovski Crystal Business, which primarily produces crystal glass, jewelry, rhinestone, watches and accessories; Swarovski Optik, which produces optical instruments such as telescopes, telescopic sights for rifles, and binoculars; and Tyrolit, a manufacturer of grinding, sawing, drilling, and dressing tools, as well as a supplier of tools and machines.
Today, the Swarovski Crystal Business is one of the highest-grossing business units within Swarovski, with a global reach of approximately 3,000 stores in roughly 170 countries, more than 29,000 employees, and a revenue of about 2.7 billion euros.
Swarovski is now run by the fifth generation of family members. It has been announced, however, that for the first time in the company's key history, senior management positions will come to be filled by non-family members during the course of 2022.

History

was born in Jiřetín pod Bukovou, a village in northern Bohemia, from the current border with Poland. His father was a glass cutter and owned a small glass factory. It was there that the young Swarovski served an apprenticeship, becoming skilled in the art of glass-cutting. In 1892 he patented an electric cutting machine that facilitated the production of crystal glass.
In 1895, Swarovski, financier Armand Kosmann, and Franz Weis founded the Swarovski company, originally known as A. Kosmann, D. Swarovski & Co. and shortened to KS & Co. The company established a crystal-cutting factory in Wattens, Tyrol, to take advantage of local hydroelectricity for the energy-intensive grinding processes Daniel Swarovski had patented. This factory was home to the first crystal-cutting machines that revolutionized the jewelry business by creating a method for the mass production of crystals. Swarovski's vision was to make "a diamond for everyone" by making crystals affordable.
In 1899, it first used the edelweiss flower in its logo and expanded to France, where it was known as 'Pierres Taillées du Tyrol'. In 1919, Swarovski founded Tyrolit, bringing the grinding and polishing tools from the crystal business into a different market.
In 1935, Swarovski's son Wilhelm created a customized pair of binoculars, which led to the launch of Swarovski Optik 14 years later. Swarovski Optik manufactures optical instruments such as binoculars, spotting scopes, rifle scopes and telescopes.
In 1977, Swarovski entered the United States' jewelry market.
Remaining a family-run business, Swarovski appointed Robert Buchbauer, the great-great-grandson of company founder Daniel Swarovski, as its new CEO in April 2020 with Mathias Margreiter serving as the company's CFO. Buchbauer had previously served as chairman of the company's executive board and as head of its consumer goods division, positions he retained after being appointed as CEO. Reported at the time as a major company shake-up, the change would see the founder's great-great-granddaughter, Nadja Swarovski, lose her roles managing the company's communications strategy along with its fine jewelry label Atelier Swarovski; she had previously become the first female member of the Swarovski executive board in 2012, a role she retained along with responsibility for the company's sustainability efforts and its charitable foundation. Alongside the executive changes, the company also closed 750 retail stores, laid off some 6,000 employees, and promoted its B2B creative director Giovanna Battaglia Engelbert to serve as the Global Creative Director of Swarovski Group, the first so-named person in the company's 125-year history.
Tasked with the full creative direction of Swarovski and with the responsibility to "re-imagine product portfolio across all divisions", Engelbert released her first retail collection for the company in February 2021 with a second collection released in September of the same year; both drew on archival references to designs that founder Daniel Swarovski had created for the company. Expanding the company's retail offering, Engelbert also hired Swarovski-family member Marina Raphael to design and develop its first handbag line, to be released under the company's Atelier Swarovski marque.
Further shake-ups to the company's management would follow in late 2021; less than 18 months into their roles, Robert Buchbauer and Mathias Margreiter were announced to be stepping down from their CEO and CFO positions. Shareholder disputes over restructuring plans for the company were cited as the cause of the change. In October 2021, Michele Molon was appointed as the company's interim CEO with Frederik Westring announced as its CFO. The change would mark the first time that Swarovski would be led by a non-family member, with Italian-born Molon long having worked at the company but unrelated to founder Daniel Swarovski.

Involvement with Nazism

Members of the Swarovski family were early, active and enthusiastic champions of Nazism, and at least six of its members maintained membership in the illegal party prior to Austria's annexation to Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. Three weeks earlier, 500 marchers in the Tyrolean town of Wattens held a torchlight procession that ended with chants of "Sieg Heil" and "Heil Hitler”. The majority of the participants, police determined, were Swarovski plant employees, among them Swarovski family heirs Alfred, Wilhelm and Friedrich.
In its report to the state police on 14 February 1947, the Innsbruck district administrator called company head Alfred Swarovski "an enthusiastic member of the NSDAP." Alfred Swarovski praised Hitler at business gatherings and took actions as a regional business leader to ensure that "Tyrolean industry could be integrated as smoothly as possible into the enormous gears of the economy of Greater Germany and into the National Socialist economic order." He sent "grateful loyalty greetings" to Adolf Hitler on his 49th birthday and arranged a donation of 100,000 shillings for Hitler to establish a holiday home in Tyrol.
The company exploited its political connections and stewardship of the regional business association to emerge stronger from the Nazi era. During the war it diversified its production and expanded its business lines, adding abrasives, optical devices, telescopes, binoculars and other product lines and growing from 500 to almost 1,200 employees between the Anschluss and March 1944.
"From my party affiliation, I only took advantage of the fact that it was possible for me as a party member to initiate the negotiations necessary for maintaining the company and to bring it to a successful conclusion with the responsible economic agencies of the Reich." Alfred Swarovski told the Innsbruck People's Court after the war.
In 1994, historian Horst Schreiber wrote about Swarovski's past but was not granted access to company archives.
The contemporary Swarovski company commissioned historian Dieter Stiefel as "a step towards dealing with our history in a serious and very pro-active manner," board spokesman Markus Langes-Swarovski said in 2018; however, the study was not published because, Langes-Swarovski said, "Swarovski is a company that generally tries to keep the owners' personal stories largely out of the public eye because it does nothing for the business."

Products

Swarovski makes products such as glass sculptures, miniature, jewellery, rhinestones, watches, home decor and chandeliers.
All sculptures are marked with a logo. The original edelweiss flower Swarovski logo was replaced by an S.A.L. logo, which was replaced with the swan logo in 1988.
Swarovski glass is produced by melting a mixture of quartz sand, soda, potash and other ingredients at high temperatures. Lead, usually used in the form of lead tetroxide, is no longer used and all Swarovski crystal glass produced since 2012 has been lead-free. To create crystal glass that lets light refract in a rainbow spectrum, Swarovski coats some of its products with special metallic chemical coatings. For example Aurora Borealis, or AB, gives the surface a rainbow appearance. Other coatings are named by the company, including Crystal Transmission, Volcano, Aurum, Shimmer, and Dorado. Coatings may be applied to only part of an object; others are coated twice and thus are designated AB 2X, Dorado 2X, etc.
Swarovski has developed a unique technology that preserves the brilliance and brightness of crystals without the use of lead dioxide. The hologram on the back of the package contains the inscription "advanced crystal superior brilliant lead-free".
In 2004 Swarovski released Xilion, a copyrighted cut designed to optimize the brilliance of Roses and Chatons.
The Swarovski Group includes Tyrolit ; Swareflex ; Swarovski Gemstones ; and Swarovski Optik.
Since 2006 the Royal Canadian Mint has issued collectors' coins with Swarovski crystal components. The 2006 crystal-snowflake coin was gold, with the reverse having six lens-shaped iridescent crystals on a snowflake. Subsequent years' crystal-snowflake coins have been $20 silver coins featuring different coloured crystals. In 2018 the Canadian mint issued 12 different birthstone coins, each with a different Swarovski crystal. The Canadian mint's 12-coin 2019 zodiac series will feature 20 Swarovski crystals on each coin.
In 2014 Tristan da Cunha issued a five-crown Christmas coin in which a small Swarovski crystal is set in the guiding star behind a coloured picture of one of the magi.
Swarovski launched its first watch collection in 1999. The watches offered by Swarovski are Swiss made.

Exhibitions and museum

The company runs a crystal-themed museum, the "Swarovski Kristallwelten " at its original Wattens site. The Crystal Worlds Center is fronted by a grass-covered head, the mouth of which is a fountain.
Swarovski work was exhibited at Asia's "Fashion Jewel5ry & Accessories Fair" based on the concept of a single continuous beam of fragmented light travelling through a crystal.
In 2012, Swarovski collaborated with the London Design Museum to present an exhibition mixing digital technology with crystals.