In the 1800s, Bohemia, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was one of the most important places where glass and lead crystal were made. Daniel Swarovski was born here in 1862. His father ran a small factory that cut crystals.
Daniel spent his childhood days in awe as he watched the workers in his father's factory turn plain pieces of lead crystal into beautiful things.
By the time he was 21, he had finished his cryst...
In the 1800s, Bohemia, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was one of the most important places where glass and lead crystal were made. Daniel Swarovski was born here in 1862. His father ran a small factory that cut crystals.
Daniel spent his childhood days in awe as he watched the workers in his father's factory turn plain pieces of lead crystal into beautiful things.
By the time he was 21, he had finished his training as a crystal cutter by working at his father's business and other crystal-cutting shops. He then went to Vienna, Austria, where the "1. Elektrische Ausstellung" was being held. This was the first-ever electrical exhibition. After seeing the electrical machines that others, like Edison, had made, he was inspired to make an electrically powered machine to cut crystals. He worked day and night for nine years to get his patent registered. In 1892, he was finally done.
Not only did his machine save a lot of time, but it also gave skilled crystal-cutters a level of uniformity and accuracy that had never been possible before.
Three years later, the business needed to be much bigger. Together with Franz Weis and Armand Kosmann, they opened a new factory in the town of Wattens in the Austrian Tyrol. This big change in location was caused by three things: The company needed a lot of power, and the Alpine streams gave them an endless supply of power to run their generators. b) They needed to move far away from their bohemian competitors so that they wouldn't copy their unique designs. c) Working from Wattens made it easy to ship their jewellery straight from the factory to Paris, the fashion capital of Europe, where it was in high demand.
In 1908, Daniel's three sons, Wilhelm, Fredrich, and Alfred, joined the business, which grew again. This time, they did it by building ovens that were made to make crystals from their raw materials. Up until this point, they had bought all of their crystal already made and cut and polished it in Wattens. But to make sure the quality was much higher, the crystal had to be made in-house. It took about five years of tweaking, but by 1913, the ovens and mixture had been improved enough to make almost perfect lead crystal.
This was a big change for Swarovski. Their beautiful crystal jewellery caught the attention of Parisian jewellers and fashion houses, as well as people from all over the world. The company took this as a challenge and began to make a lot of lead crystal at once. Making it a force to be reckoned with in the world of making lead crystal.
In 1935, Wilhelm got a patent for a pair of binoculars. He did this because his family had always been creative. This was the company's main source of income during World War II. It was sold under the brand name "Habicht." By 1949, Swarovski Optic had replaced the Habicht name. Today, when it comes to precision optical instruments, their lenses are second to none.
Since then, almost a century ago, Swarovski has always worked to get better at what they do. This has kept them at the top of their field, and their name is still associated with the highest quality and most beautiful crystal.
Over time, they've added more products to their line, like rhinestones, vases, stemware, picture frames, sculptures, chandeliers, and so on. And the company still pays as much attention to details and quality as it did when Daniel was in charge a hundred years ago.
