Starstruck by Swarovski; Her family is famous for its crystal

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Jul 27, 2003 | by Valerie Darroch

WHEN you step into the glittering world of Nadja Swarovski, the glamorous scion of the Swarovski Crystal empire, it seems hard to believe that for decades the company's dazzling products remained largely a secret shared by the elite of the haute couture world.

A Swarovski crystal cross dangling from her neck, she picks her way across her Mayfair showroom, walking past a black couch upholstered in thousands of tiny crystals; an intricate corset wrought from wire and crystal; and a candelabra created for her own wedding at which she wore a dress encrusted with 15,000 crystals.

She stops at display cabinets which swing open to reveal trays of crystals in every colour of the rainbow and every size and shape imaginable.

Growing up in Wattens in the Austrian Tyrol, the town where her great-great-grandfather Daniel Swarovski founded the company in 1895, Nadja's father Helmut (the present chief executive) used to come home from the factory, his pockets rattling with crystals.

"He used to give them to me and I'd make little necklaces there's something about crystal, you have to touch it to appreciate it," she says.

Rolling the crystals in your hand, it is easy to understand why Swarovski's idea to open creative centres in the world's fashion capitals with "Crystal Play Rooms" for designers to sample their products, was a winner.

Thanks to her efforts at courting fashion designers, Swarovski's name is now linked with the kings of catwalk cool such as Alexander McQueen, Julien Macdonald and Zac Posen. Swarovski sponsors major fashion events and art exhibitions and presents Oscar nominees with glittering handbags and shoes delivered in style on a crystal- studded BMW motor bike. Hilary Swank is just one Oscar winner who sashayed down the red carpet clutching the company's products.

Swarovski's charm offensive has been rewarded with sales to fashion divas such as Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Aniston and Kylie Minogue as well as seeing its products appear in movies including Moulin Rouge, and Die Another Day, in which Pierce Brosnan frolicked on a bed of the crystals (masquerading as diamonds) with Halle Berry.

Upcoming movies Tomb Raider II and Phantom Of The Opera will also feature Swarovski creations.

"Now designers are approaching us and wanting to work for us it's very nice but it has only happened because of very hard work," she says.

Swarovski is one of seven family members to work in the company, which employs more than 13,000 people worldwide, and which posted turnover of (euros)1.67 billion in 2002.

It has 13 manufacturing and assembly plants and 280 stores worldwide and plans to open several more including one in New Bond Street.

The company's extraordinary Crystal Worlds theme park in Wattens, which opened in 1995 and has art installations by Brian Eno and Keith Haring, is the second most popular tourist attraction in Austria.

Nadja Swarovski, who studied art history and gemology, joined the family firm in 1995 after working in fashion PR in New York for Valentino, Missoni and Bulgari.

"I realised that these were family-owned European fashion brands and I thought 'That's us'. I saw so much potential for Swarovski," she says.

In eight years working in Hong Kong, New York and London, Swarovski has revitalised the brand's image, drawing on its rich legacy and updating it by forging links with modern trendsetters such as Isabella Blow, fashion director of Tatler, and Isle Crawford of Elle Decoration, who has consulted on a new range of interior design products.

Queen Victoria's dress designers were Swarovski's first customers, buying bags of crystals to adorn her royal robes, and in the first half of the 20th century Coco Chanel and Christian Dior used the company's crystals in their signature collections.

Hollywood costumiers were also in on the secret, creating ruby slippers for Judy Garland in The Wizard Of Oz as well as costumes for style icons Marlene Dietrich, Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn.

And the Swarovski touch lent an extra sparkle to Marilyn Monroe when she wore a dress studded with 10,000 crystals to serenade President John F Kennedy in 1962. The problem, from Nadja Swarovski's viewpoint as international vice president of communications, was that everyone knew the Monroe dress but no-one knew of Swarovski's involvement.

Until recently, if you mentioned Swarovski Crystal, most people, if they had heard of the company at all, associated it with the collection of tiny rather kitsch crystal animals it makes.

Although the company's products range from crystals for the fashion and jewellery trade to cat's eyes for roads, precision cutting tools, binoculars and even fibre-optic lighting, it was the glass menagerie that caught the public's eye.

Still popular with collectors across the world, the animal collection was created almost by accident.

"My grandfather was playing around with a chandelier ball and he stuck tear-shaped bits on top and made a mouse," Swarovski said.

"I tried to work with the animal line but it didn't turn me on I went back to what turned me on as a kid - the beads," Swarovski says.