A Legend of Innovation :Swarovski

Posted by admin on February 2, 2010

In the Nineteenth century, Bohemia, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire was one of the most significant producing centers for both glass and lead crystal. It was here that Daniel Swarovski was born in 1862, the child of the owner of a little crystal-cutting factory. Daniel wasted away his youth years by watching, in awe, the employees in his pa’s factory, elegantly working the lead crystal blanks into things of beauty. By the age of twenty-one, having finished his crystal cutting tutelage by working at his pa’s business and at other crystal-cutting shops, he ventured to Vienna, Austria, where the one.

Elektrische Ausstellung : the very first electric exhibition was being held. Having seen electrical machines developed by others, including Edison, he left there stirred to develop an electrically powered crystal-cutting machine. As well as saving a massive period of time, his machine enabled the talented crystal-cutters to realize uniformity and accuracy that was, up till that time, very unlikely to fantasize. B ) they wished to move a long distance from the meddling eyes of their bohemian rivals to avoid imitation of their unique designs and c ) with its superior rail links, working from Wattens guaranteed that their goods might be shuttled directly from the factory to Paris, the fashion capital of Europe, where their jewellery was in great demand. By 1908, Daniel had been joined by his 3 boys : Wilhelm, Fredrich and Alfred and the company expanded once again.

This time by the building of ovens specifically built to create the crystal from its raw materials. to enable much tougher QC, the crystal simply had to be made in-house. It took about five years of tinkering finally, by 1913, the ovens and mix were refined to a point where they were turning out near-perfect lead crystal. This was a major turning point for Swarovski.

The company rose to this challenge and began to mass-produce its lead crystal on a grand scale. Establishing it as a force to be reckoned with in the lead crystal-manufacturing world. These were marketed under the brand of Habicht and were the firm’s major source of revenue thru WW2. By 1949 the Habicht name was given up in favour of Swarovski Optic. Today, their lenses are unbeaten in the world of precision optical instruments. Since that time, about a century gone, Swarovski’s attention to relentless improvement has kept them at the apex of their craft and their name is still, to this day, associated with crystal of the very best quality and un-paralleled beauty.

And the organization’s awareness of detail and quality is as high now as it is a century back when Daniel was in charge.