What is special about Swarovski crystals

Con­trary to the pop­u­lar belief of many peo­ple, Swarovs­ki crys­tals are not rock crys­tal, but glass stones made using a spe­cial tech­nol­o­gy.
We will tell you in this arti­cle how this brand appeared and devel­oped, what the famous Swarovs­ki crys­tals are made of, how to dis­tin­guish orig­i­nal prod­ucts from low-grade fakes.

Swarovski stones: over 120 years of history

Prod­ucts such as Swarovs­ki brand crys­tals are an old fam­i­ly busi­ness found­ed by Daniel Swarovs­ki in 1895 in Wat­tens, locat­ed at the foot of the pic­turesque Aus­tri­an Alps. Daniel’s father owned a small glass fac­to­ry, where the boy learned glass­work and jew­el­ry mak­ing from an ear­ly age. Daniel’s goal has always been to cre­ate “dia­monds for every­one”. He made glass crys­tals by melt­ing down a mix­ture of quartz sand, potas­si­um and soda at very high tem­per­a­tures. The exact process and ratio to this day remains a close­ly guard­ed secret. To obtain a unique refrac­tion of light in the rain­bow spec­trum, appro­pri­ate cut­ting angles devel­oped over the years, as well as spe­cial met­al coat­ings that scat­ter light, are used. In 1882, Daniel patent­ed an elec­tric glass cut­ting machine that was much more pre­cise than hand cut­ting. Since 1899, he began to use the image of the noble moun­tain flower edel­weiss in the logo of his com­pa­ny and became known in France as Pier­res Tail­lées du Tyrol — faceted stones from Tyrol, which were often called “Swarovs­ki crys­tal”.

In 1919 a sub­sidiary com­pa­ny, the Tyrolit Group, was estab­lished, spe­cial­iz­ing in the pro­duc­tion of tools for grind­ing, pol­ish­ing, cut­ting, saw­ing and drilling crys­tals.
One of the most charis­mat­ic Hol­ly­wood stars, the leg­endary femme fatale, icon and design­er of her own style, Mar­lene Diet­rich made her debut in the film “Blond Venus” in 1932 in jew­el­ry and dress­es adorned with Swarovs­ki crys­tals.

In 1939, the leg­endary design of ruby ​​slip­pers for Dorothy from the movie The Wiz­ard of Oz was cre­at­ed. In the same year, based on the patent of Daniel’s son Wil­helm, using the prop­er­ties of stones and Swarovs­ki crys­tals, binoc­u­lars, tele­scopes and spot­ting scopes used in hunt­ing and trav­el­ing began to be pro­duced.

In 1950, a new brand was born: Swarovs­ki Optik Sware­flex, offer­ing intel­li­gent road safe­ty sys­tems and light­ing solu­tions for indus­tri­al facil­i­ties, trans­port areas, hotels and shops. Swarovs­ki crys­tals began to be used by icon­ic fash­ion design­ers such as Coco Chanel, Cristo­bal Balen­ci­a­ga, Elsa Schi­a­par­el­li.

In 1953, the famous film “Gen­tle­men Pre­fer Blondes” was released, where Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe sings in a dress adorned with thou­sands of Swarovs­ki crys­tals.
1956 was marked by the appear­ance of the famous AB effect from Auro­ra Bore­alis (North­ern Lights), mak­ing the crys­tal sparkle with all the col­ors of the rain­bow.

In 1961, Audrey Hep­burn daz­zled movie­go­ers in Break­fast at Tiffany’s with a design­er crown of iri­des­cent Swarovs­ki crys­tals.

In 1962, Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe sang the famous song “Hap­py Birth­day Mr. Pres­i­dent for Pres­i­dent JF Kennedy at Madi­son Square Gar­den in a skin-toned Jean Louis gown embell­ished with 2,500 Swarovs­ki crys­tals shim­mer­ing in a thou­sand col­ors in the spot­light.
Under the brand name Swarovs­ki, in 1965, the pro­duc­tion of pre­cise­ly cut gem­stones such as sap­phire, peri­dot, amethyst and mar­c­a­site began.

In 1966, the new­ly found­ed brand Swarovs­ki Light­ing graced the stage of the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera at Lin­coln Cen­ter in New York with crys­tal chan­de­liers.

In 1976, the idea arose of mass pro­duc­tion of crys­tal fig­urines from Swarovs­ki crys­tal mate­ri­als. In the same year, the world’s first com­pa­ny was found­ed to offer machine-cut zir­con to the jew­el­ry indus­try.

In 1983, the first Sil­ver Crys­tal Suite store opened in Lon­don’s pres­ti­gious Old Bond Street. The crys­tal fig­urine of a tur­tle was stolen on the first day of open­ing. Since then, a tra­di­tion has also been estab­lished to release an annu­al lim­it­ed-edi­tion rhine­stone Christ­mas fig­urine.

In 1989, the swan became the sym­bol­ic logo of the Swarovs­ki brand.

Shiny Crys­tal Mesh fab­ric, coat­ed with small crys­tals, was devel­oped in 1993.

Daniel’s great grand­daugh­ter Nadia joined the fam­i­ly busi­ness in 1995. By the cen­te­nary of the fac­to­ry, the muse­um “Crys­tal Worlds of Swarovs­ki” was cre­at­ed on its ter­ri­to­ry. It con­sist­ed of 17 halls of mir­a­cles. They have been designed by world renowned artists such as Bri­an Eno, Tord Bun­tier, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jim Whit­ing, Kei­th Har­ing, Andy Warhol, Sal­vador Dalí and Yay­oi Kusama. Each artist has inter­pret­ed Swarovs­ki stones in their own way, so each room has its own theme and atmos­phere. In 1999, Alexan­der McQueen’s Spring-Sum­mer col­lec­tion fea­tured the famous crys­tal mesh.

In 2001, Swarovs­ki crys­tals graced Nicole Kid­man’s satin suits at the Moulin Rouge dur­ing Baz Luhrman­n’s musi­cal per­for­mance.

In 2002, Nadia Swarovs­ki cre­at­ed The Crys­tal Palace in col­lab­o­ra­tion with tal­ent­ed light­ing and design design­ers.
2003 marked the pre­miere of the Swarovs­ki Rocks crys­tal fab­ric, the first tex­tile mate­r­i­al made using the inno­v­a­tive Hot-Fix tech­nique. It can be ironed, stitched and glued to oth­er mate­ri­als.

In 2004, Xil­ion debuted an inno­v­a­tive author’s cut that increas­es the inten­si­ty of the glow and mes­mer­iz­ing light effects of crys­tals.

Dur­ing the Con­fes­sions World Tour, Madon­na daz­zled audi­ences in out­fits adorned with thou­sands of Swarovs­ki crys­tals.

In 2007, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with The Acad­e­my Awards, a crys­tal cur­tain of over 50,000 crys­tals was cre­at­ed to serve as the back­drop for Hol­ly­wood’s great­est stars at the Oscars. In the same year, Ate­lier Swarovs­ki appeared, pro­duc­ing col­lec­tions of crys­tal acces­sories in col­lab­o­ra­tion with inter­na­tion­al artists and design­ers in fash­ion, jew­el­ry and archi­tec­ture.
The brand has part­nered with Philips to dec­o­rate USB devices and head­phones from the Active Crys­tals col­lec­tion.

In 2009, after three years of design­ing, research­ing and test­ing the famous Swiss quartz move­ment, the first col­lec­tion of Swarovs­ki Crys­tal Watch­es is born, where ele­gance meets lux­u­ry.

In 2010, Michael Jack­son’s Swarovs­ki crys­tal gloves were auc­tioned for $192,000.

In 2011, the first per­fume Aura by Swarovs­ki was cre­at­ed.

In 2012, Xir­ius 1088, the bright­est jew­el-like star in the galaxy, took place. Thanks to the new stan­dards of pre­cise cut­ting tech­nique, the crys­tal became more durable, the col­ors more sat­u­rat­ed.

In 2015, on the Rebe­lion Heart tour, Madon­na wore 350 cos­tumes made from over 2.5 mil­lion Swarovs­ki crys­tals in 50 col­ors and 60 cuts. It took 120,000 crys­tals to dec­o­rate her clothes, shoes, masks, hats, gloves, gui­tar straps.

In 2017, 25 years after the death of actress Mar­lene Diet­rich, Swarovs­ki and Elek­tro­Cou­ture cre­ate a dress embell­ished with 2,000 crys­tals and 150 LEDs. This was inspired by the cor­re­spon­dence of the actress with fash­ion design­er Jean Louis in 1958. Pene­lope Cruz becomes Swarovs­ki Glob­al Brand Ambas­sador.
At the 2018 Vic­to­ria Secret show, Swarovs­ki crys­tals adorned the $1 mil­lion Fan­ta­sy bra.

In 2019, coop­er­a­tion with Dior and Chanel began.
Today, Swarovs­ki crys­tal is an ele­ment of jew­el­ry, main­ly ear­rings and rings, as well as clothes, shoes, bags, scarves, scarves, hats, watch­es, smart­phone cas­es. Sequins, rhine­stones and sequins are such acces­sories that are wide­ly used in the cos­met­ic indus­try, nail ser­vice, inte­ri­or design in the form of han­dles for roller blinds, chan­de­liers, door han­dles, fur­ni­ture han­dles.

In 2014, on the occa­sion of the 120th anniver­sary, the attrac­tions of the Crys­tal Worlds Muse­um were ren­o­vat­ed and expand­ed with the addi­tion of a crys­tal cloud made up of 800,000 crys­tals, a game tow­er and a restau­rant where chilled cham­pagne is served in glass­es stud­ded with small crys­tals.

How to determine the value of products from Swarovski crystals?

This brand is known for its mas­ter­ful inno­va­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty that makes it trend-set­ting for the year ahead rather than fol­low­ing them. Swarovs­ki has rev­o­lu­tion­ized crys­tal pro­cess­ing. Thanks to the refined qual­i­ty of grind­ing and cut­ting, he cre­ates mul­ti-lay­ered com­po­si­tions, angles and col­ors, obtain­ing per­fect solu­tions. Many years of prac­tice and con­stant devel­op­ment allow him to guar­an­tee the iden­ti­ty of each prod­uct due to the qual­i­ty, shape, size, col­or and bril­liance of not only the front sur­face of the crys­tal, but also its bot­tom, inner part and even the hole. A wide range of col­ors, shapes and sizes, as well as a reg­u­lar expan­sion of the range — the intro­duc­tion of new prod­ucts twice a year — make the col­lec­tions of this brand a fab­u­lous trea­sure of inspi­ra­tion for design­ers from all over the world. As a result, there are many low-qual­i­ty fakes.

To pur­chase high-qual­i­ty Swarovs­ki crys­tals or jew­el­ry from this brand, and not its imi­ta­tion, you need to know how to dis­tin­guish a fake from the orig­i­nal.

As more and more low-end imi­ta­tions flood the mar­ket, Swarovs­ki has intro­duced anoth­er pro­tec­tion in the form of a cer­tifi­cate of authen­tic­i­ty of crys­tals, which is manda­to­ry when buy­ing jew­el­ry, and print­ing. This is a holo­gram con­tain­ing the image of the Alps, the inscrip­tion of the year the com­pa­ny was found­ed, the name of the new col­lec­tion and an indi­vid­ual num­ber by which the man­u­fac­tur­er’s batch can be iden­ti­fied.

From lumi­nous rhine­stones to frost­ed crys­tals, there is some­thing for every­one in the Swarovs­ki jew­el­ry col­lec­tions. Check out the cat­a­log of the Sil­vers online store, where the prod­ucts of this brand are pre­sent­ed in a large assort­ment. Order with deliv­ery in Ukraine, shine like stars and enjoy the beau­ti­ful sparkle of the north­ern lights.