Who Is … Swarovski

 

This is the first foray in to my new series “who is …..” . Each post will look at a well known jewellery brand, where it came from, it’s history and is it still around etc. the next post will have a prize or two from that brand. My first post will look at Swarovski,  the largest jewellery brand in the world. .

Daniel Swarovski founded the Swarovski company in 1895. It is a family owned and run business, employing over  29,000 employees in over 170 countries with over 3,000 shops. Their products fall into 3 categories: Swarovski Crystal Business which covers jewellery, they are the biggest jewellery company worldwide, crystals, rhinestones, glass ornaments and accessories;Swarovski Optik which makes telescopes and telescopic sights for rifles and binoculars and Tyrolit which manufactures and sells grinding and drilling tools. 

Daniel Swarovski was born in 1862 in a small village in Northern Bohemia (now the Czech Republic). He trained as a glass cutter and in 1892 patented a cutting machine that creates crystal glass. 

In 1885 Swarovski, financier Armand Osmann and Franz Weis established Swarovski which was originally called A Osmann, D Swarovski and Co, shortened to to KS & Co,  they established a crystal cutting factory in Wattens, Austria. In 1919 Tyrolit was established bringing together all the grinding and cutting machinery from the crystal business into a wider market.  In 1935 Swarovski’s son, Wilhelm adapted a pair of binoculars and in 1949 Optik was born. 

Obviously it is not fair to look a the history and origins of Swarovski without considering where they were situated and the dates. Tyrol/ Wattens supported Nazism and Hitler, there was a march there in 1938 and at least 6 of the Swarovski family were ardent supporters of the then illegal party prior to the annexation of Austria in 1938. 

Swarovski benefitted from their support for Nazi Germany, the size of the company almost doubled during the war period and it expanded its product lines to include telescopes, binoculars and other optical devices for example. Swarovski has not granted historians access to their files so the true extent of their support for Hitler and the benefits gained from this is not known. 

So from this brief history, Swarovski’s history is rather murky. It is the largest jewellery brand in the world but although it is famous and well known for crystals it has success in other areas too.