The Business of Being Swarovski

Nadja Swarovski has always had crystals on her mind, from sunrise to sunset, and it’s no wonder: The house she grew up in was right next to the company headquarters in the Austrian Tyrol and the view from her bedroom window was a big Swarovski sign. As a kid, she customized her jeans with the homegrown sparklers and made her own necklaces and bracelets from them, too. “My father was in charge of manufacturing, so his pocket was always full of crystals. He would have meetings with developers, and I’d meet the scientists, the creators and the artists he was working with at the time, so it was always a part of my life,” said Swarovski, one of five family members who run the 3.02 billion euro, $3.42 billion, company, with business divisions that range from designer jewelry and animal figurines to chandeliers, crystal components and reflective road lights. When Swarovski was growing up in the Seventies and Eighties, the company was best known to the public for its gliding swan logo and its figurines — the first being the rotund bewhiskered mouse known as “Ur-Maus” — and to the industry for its crystal components and chandeliers. Back then, crystals were still

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