Swarovski
Born in 1862 in Bohemia, the glass and crystal capital of Europe at that
time, Daniel Swarovski was the son of a crystal cutter. As a boy, he would sit
and watch the men working in his father’s factory and in 1883, at the age of 21,
completed his apprenticeship.
This was the dawn of the age of electricity and soon after visiting the first
electrical exhibition in Vienna he became inspired to invent a machine for
cutting crystal. Eventually, after nine year’s hard work, his dream became a
reality and he registered his patent for the first crystal-cutting machine. This
allowed perfect, uniform cuts to be made to crystal, it was quicker and much
more accurate than any human hand and eye could ever achieve.
He joined forces with Franz Weis and Armand Kosmann and, in 1895; they laid the
foundations for the company in Wattens in Tyrol. The reasons that the factory
was to be sited here, many miles from his hometown were threefold:
- They needed power and the Alpine streams of the Tyrol provided them with
power in abundance.
- They needed secrecy and being miles away from their competition, they
could operate freely without fear of being imitated.
- And, finally, they needed to transport their goods easily to the fashion
capital of Europe; Paris. Where their produce, crystal jewelry stones were
in high demand.
Wattens in Tyrol fitted the bill.
In 1908, joined by his three son’s: Wilhelm, Friedrich and Alfred, Daniel
built a special workshop at their home to facilitate the manufacture of
crystal from its raw materials. Up until this time, all the crystal had been
purchased by the company and then worked at their factory. It took five
years to develop the ovens and come up with the recipe but in 1913,
Swarovski started to produce it own, near-perfect crystal. This was a
turning point in the company’s history and enabled them to start
mass-producing on a grand scale. The resulting, flawless crystal stones were
now much sought after everywhere, especially in the Paris fashion houses and
jewelers. And production, for the time being at least, was geared solely to
supplying this demand.
Today, Swarovski's range of products includes rhinestones, vases, stemware,
picture frames, sculptures etc. etc. etc. and the quality is just what you
would expect from a family owned company who’s only purpose seems to be to
constantly improve upon their already extremely high standards.Buy
Swarovski From Best Wishes of Boca
- Free shipping on orders over $100.00 to the Contiguous
States.
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