Swarovski History

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The Company Description of Its Time

Swarovski is the Austrian crystal house founded by Daniel Swarovski, and its profile opens with the man's own origin story. Born in Bohemia in 1862, where crystal defined life in his parents' house - Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was one of the world's great glass and crystal centers, and crystal was cut in his father's small factory. Daniel apprenticed with his father and at several other crystal-cutters, and at 21 visited the First Electrical Exhibition in Vienna, where the new techniques of Siemens and Edison gave him the idea of his life: a machine for cutting crystal. Nine years later, in 1892, he registered the patent - a machine that cut crystal to perfection, far faster and more precisely than hand work. In 1895, together with his brother-in-law Franz Weis and Armand Kosmann, he founded the company at Wattens in the Austrian Tyrol, near the hydroelectric power his machines needed.

Crystal Worlds, XILION and CRYSTALLIZED: 1995-2007

For the company's centenary in 1995 the Crystal Worlds - Kristallwelten - were created at Wattens as a memorial to crystal's 'intangible and enchanting' character, part museum, part concert hall; the record follows their 2003 metamorphosis under artistic director André Heller, a 15 million reconstruction around chambers of wonder and contemporary art. The retail march is dated year by year: a virtual museum, thecrystalweb.org, in 2004 alongside 94 new stores; in 2006, 108 additional stores opened, bringing Swarovski to 673 own-operated and 516 partner-operated boutiques. In 2004 the company developed the XILION cut, rearranging facets to enhance the refraction of light 'for even more sparkle.'

The record's final entry, from 2007, is the birth of a brand: CRYSTALLIZED - Swarovski Elements, 'the new brand for the innovative and inspirational elements,' formalizing the trade in loose crystals, shapes, sizes, colours, textures and finishes that designers in every corner of the design world had long bought from Wattens. The company remains family-owned and headquartered in Wattens: its crystal business reports roughly €2.7 billion in revenue and some 3,000 stores in about 170 countries, alongside the Swarovski Optik and Tyrolit divisions. Daniel Swarovski's 1892 machine, the filing concludes, opened 'the door to a world of fantasy' - and the dated entries are the sound of it swinging wider, decade by decade.

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