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Crystal in Interior
Swarovski crystal, the material of the moment, fashion’s favourite ingredient, is welcomed into the home, adding scintillating and soulful luxury to interiors, architecture, lighting and objects.
A Universe of Crystal
Established as an integral, vibrant part of fashion, as a creative material with infinite depths of light and brilliance, Swarovski crystal fires the imaginations of designers around the world. Today, as the appeal of crystal broadens and fashion influences are cross-fertilised with trends in interior design, Swarovski’s involvement with interiors, architecture and home décor is strengthening and crystal is set to play a major creative role in interior design.
Enchanting the World
As a company, Swarovski comprises two major divisions: The first, dating back to the company’s origins in 1895, producing precision-cut crystal components. Catering to a wide range of design-driven industries, Swarovski has become a valued creative partner to the architectural design community. The second division, established in the mid 1970s, uses these same elements to create finished crystal products, jewellery, fashion accessories, objects and home-wares, which are sold through a worldwide network of over 1150 Swarovski stores.
Illuminating Ideas
Since 1965, Swarovski has produced the finest quality crystal chandelier components, under the brand name, STRASS® Swarovski® Crystal, used by the world’s leading lighting designers and manufacturers. Bearing all the hallmarks of Swarovski crystal, STRASS® Swarovski® Crystal traditional chandelier elements are perfectly precision-cut and polished, radiating an exceptional brilliance unrivalled in the industry.
Swarovski’s celebrated traditional chandelier components grace some of the world’s most spectacular chandeliers, from breathtaking cutting-edge Crystal Palace creations by designers like Ron Arad and Ingo Maurer, to historic chandeliers in the Metropolitan Opera House and the Palace of Versailles. The largest crystal chandelier in the world, decorated with more than 600,000 STRASS® Swarovski® Crystal elements, hangs in the Sultan Quaboos Grand Mosque in Oman.
Swarovski Crystal Palace
Looking to the future, nurturing crystal creativity, Swarovski has initiated the revolutionary design project, Crystal Palace, aimed at reinventing the chandelier for a new age. Under the direction of Nadja Swarovski-Adams, the Crystal Palace collection breaks the mould of the traditional chandelier by commissioning breathtaking creations from internationally renowned designers including Tom Dixon, Yves Behar, Marcel Wanders and even musician Lenny Kravitz. Pushing boundaries of both design and technology, these intensely individual and provocative interpretations, some organic, some futuristic, raise the contemporary chandelier to the level of an art form. Swarovski commissions new Crystal Palace collections each year, inviting cutting edge designers to play with the architecture of light and the poetry of precision, to bring their crystal visions to life. An acclaimed international success, the Crystal Palace collection is shown at events and exhibitions across the world from Art Basel in Miami to the Salon di Mobile in Milano.
Architectural Lighting Solutions
Swarovski’s contemporary lighting systems combine innovative light sources such as fibre optics and LEDs, with the emotionally-charged, mood-enhancing qualities of cut crystal. Blending beauty and function, these modern lighting ideas, including down-lights and recessed spotlights, shimmering starry sky ceilings and illuminated crystal panels create a range of moods and effects, suffused or focused, for minimal or intricate settings, in private homes, public spaces or hotels.
Crystal Design for Living
As the company broadens its scope within the fields of architecture and interior design, Swarovski crystal elements have become a glamorous ingredient in furniture, fabrics, wallpaper, bathrooms and interior accessories, for hotels, residential and public spaces. Crystal-enhanced decorative and furnishing fabrics as well as wallcoverings are the latest innovations to seduce the market. Swarovski leads the way forward, working closely with names such as Vescom, the company responsible for introducing the first ever crystal-encrusted wallcoverings, German fabric house Nya Nordiska who used Swarovski’s transparent, crystal-dusted ‘Crystal Fabric’, and avant-garde textile designer, Ulf Moritz, who incorporated crystal into his collection of ornamental trimmings that is now distributed by the German editing company Sahco. Italian furniture company, Edra, who first discovered the joys of crystal with their famous Flap sofa in 2001, have gone on to create the ‘Diamond Collection’ of contemporary sofas and armchairs.
Supporting design talent of the future, Swarovski initiates inventive projects with leading art and design schools around the world. “Shine of the Times” was a concept developed by futurologist Li Edelkoort for her students at the Design Academy, Eindhoven, Netherlands, and “Crystal Living” was a project undertaken with the Loughborough University School of Art and Design, UK.
Crystal Creativity
In 2005 Swarovski joined forces with Kludi, German makers of fine bathroom fittings, to create the first holistic crystal bathroom revolving around the qualities and facets of crystal. The result is the spa-like crystal “Swarovski bathroom made by Kludi”, fitted with crystal vanity and shower units, crystal wall and floor coverings, lighting systems and chandeliers. In Spring 2006, Swarovski commissioned acclaimed international Dutch-born designer Tord Boontje to create Winter Wonderland, a poetic winter mountain landscape, made entirely of crystal, to be shown for three years at the Swarovski Crystal Gallery in Innsbruck.
Swarovski regularly joins forces with major architectural projects around the world. Since 2004, Swarovski has provided the crystal star that traditionally tops the world famous Christmas tree at the Rockefeller Center in New York. Now, cementing this partnership, Swarovski crystal plays an integral part in the Rockefeller Center’s newly refurbished observation decks, Top of the Rock. Architect Michael Gabellini worked closely with Swarovski to add bespoke crystal features and two crystal works of art. Paying homage to the great Austrian born composer, in 2006, Swarovski built a massive installation using 35.000 crystals, at the Salzburg “Haus für Mozart”.
Objects with a crystal soul
Understanding the potential for crystal to bring light and luxury into the home, Swarovski has built its own consumer goods collections of decorative objects. The charming mouse, conjured up in 1976 became the first creature in the spectacularly successful collection of crystal figurines. The Swarovski Collectors’ Society, established in the 1980s, has now close to 400,000 members worldwide. Today, the latest in the long line of these endearing creatures are the Lovlots, fun-filled animal characters, full of joy and each with its individual personality. Since the 1990s, Swarovski has worked with world-renowned names in the design community, like Borek Sipek and Andrée Putman, to reinvent the crystal object for a new discerning, design-conscious audience. Cutting-edge yet intensely glamorous, these powerfully contemporary designs reverberate with echoes of the cut-crystal object as a luxurious object of desire.
The inspired Daniel Swarovski Collection of jewellery, handbags, watches, accessories and interior objects, launched in 1989 and masterminded in Paris by an in-house creative team, has become the Couture signature of the Swarovski brand. In 2002, the first Daniel Swarovski Home Décor line was launched as an extension of the accessories line. Imbued with the same spirit of intense creativity and innovation, these objects emphasised Daniel Swarovski’s close links to couture, anticipating the current crossover between fashion and interiors. At the same time, they followed in the footsteps of earlier, limited edition collectors’ objects, part of the original Daniel Swarovski concept, which had been commissioned from leading lights of design, Ettore Sottsass, Alessandro Mendini and Stefano Ricci.
In 2004, a new couture-inspired collection of Swarovski crystal home décor objects became part of a new strategy to unite Daniel Swarovski and Swarovski diffusion collections through a single inspirational theme, interpreted by each line in its own individual way, giving meaning and relevance to the new generation of crystal objects. Filled with the pure energy of light, reflecting the mood of the moment, Swarovski crystal, the material with a soul, fills the home, and the world, with enchantment.
