Bling, bling, bling, bling. For many people, this is what defines costume jewellery: cut glass and all that glitters. And it’s a look that has been appropriated by sundry WAGs and suburban lovelies. But, while there will always be room for this kind of ostentation, a new way of selling cut crystal and shiny stuff was unveiled in London last week in a store-cum-exhibition-cum-atelier space that might reshape our ideas.
In November, Swarovski – the retailer and brand that has made a very decent business of selling cut glass in all its forms since 1895 – gave its 1,200 sq ft (110 sq m) flagship store on Regent Street a makeover, courtesy of Japanese architect and designer Tokujin Yoshioka. In place of the familiar royal blue and red-orange interior studded with glitzy paste gemstones, a bright white and mirrored interior was revealed.
This was the first hint that things were changing for the Austrian manufacturer and retailer, which is based in Wattens, close to the southern city of Innsbruck. The previous interior scheme had stood Swarovski in good stead worldwide for the past eight years. Now, from the outside, it’s quite hard to miss the shop, because it is so much at odds with almost anything else along Regent Street.
Staring through the store’s windows, you are ushered into a world of highly polished glass shelves and mirrors. The swan, Swarovski’s brand logo, is illuminated on the wall behind the cash-and-wrap counter, while all around everything sparkles.
There is nothing cheap about any of the items on display, with the great majority of the goods on offer being contained within internally lit glass boxes set into the walls. Where there is centre-floor equipment, it does not obstruct the view and is designed in a manner that allows the rest of the floor to be viewed through it.
There are, of course, a number of familiar items – the coloured glass animals, for instance. But, in general, the Regent Street store confirms Swarovski’s intention to move the brand upmarket, positioning it as a purveyor of luxury items with aspirational prices to match.
Since this new-format store welcomed its first shoppers in London, two more lookalikes have opened in Boston and Hong Kong, and plans are in place to begin a modest roll-out this year, according to head of retail marketing Nina Müller. This will be no small job, however. There are 750 Swarovski stores worldwide, so converting them all in one fell swoop would probably prove impossible. The company is coy about discussing shopfits and price, but a spokesman goes as far as admitting that the Regent Street fit-out, which has been two years in the making, is up there with any luxury brand in terms of cost.
Nadja Swarovski, vice-president of international communications and scion of the eponymous family, is clear about the task the company has ahead of it. “As you can imagine, this is a huge project. We will definitely need one concept that we can use, otherwise a roll-out wouldn’t be possible,” she says. So we can all rest safe in the knowledge that an updated Swarovski store will be heading towards us at some point in the indeterminate future.
Mixing and matching
There was, however, rather more at stake for the Swarovski family in London last week. On Friday, in part of the former Dickins & Jones department store along Great Marlborough Street, a two-floor, 4,520 sq ft (420 sq m) homage to the brand flung wide its doors. And this is an entirely different proposition from the Regent Street emporium.
At the press conference held the day before, the Swarovski appreciation society (journalists) had been bussed in from as far afield as Milan. All had come to catch a first glimpse of Swarovski Crystallized – a new retail concept, we were informed, that would enable shoppers to become part of the artistic endeavour that underpins the brand.
Pragmatically, this means that Crystallized is a place where you can go to assemble your own cut-glass personal adornments by selecting from thousands of options contained in transparent boxes displayed on the walls. Having chosen what you want within the Crystallized Cosmos, also known as the ground floor, you can fashion your own customised jewellery by mixing, matching and coming over all creative.
This sounds quite simple, but the sheer breadth of choice in the 3,230 sq ft (300 sq m) showroom, designed by London design consultancy Virgile & Stone, will make demands on everyone who pays a visit. And the hallmark of this floor is attention to detail. A multitude of miniature drawers containing pieces of coloured cut glass form the perimeter along two sides of the shop and each drawer has been oil-damped so that, no matter how hard you try, you can’t slam them shut. They glide back into place.
Then there are the peacock feather-covered black sculptures set on top of the serious-looking internally lit black display cases in the middle of the shop. These are home, among other things, to ranges of ready-made style kits that shoppers can buy and take home to put together.
Whether you are prepared to spend£20 on a ring with peacock feathers that you then have to make yourself is a moot point, but the concept and presentation are beguiling. The floor also has a series of fashion items, festooned with cut glass, that function as museum pieces and mood-setters. Above the centre-floor display cabinets, black rectangular blocks act as lighting gantries and also as vehicles for showing off yet more cut glass placed within their underside.
Head upstairs via the staircase at the back of the shop, decorated with mirrors to enlarge the space, and you enter the Lounge. As the name might suggest, this has more to do with upmarket relaxation in Teutonically modern-looking seating than it does with buying glass. That said, there is a long white table with a rim that allows it to be covered in thousands and thousands of white diamanté drops. The table is laid for a glittering dinner with, strangely, shoes on each dinner plate. The table is bathed in white LED light, matching the settings and echoing a white jewellery-encrusted installation that’s set behind glass in the adjacent wall.
This floor is planned to provide shoppers with exhibitions and news of fashion events that will open up a world of style “previously accessible only to designers, artisans and industry insiders”, according to the retailer.
Whatever you might think of that, the Cosmos and Lounge are fine additions to the local retail panorama and go some way towards reinventing a fashion category that is all too often dismissed by large parts of the shopping population. Shanghai and New York are set to receive Cosmos and Lounge outlets later this year and Swarovski plans to open more, provided this initial trial proves successful.
Whichever way you view it, this is a substantial departure from run-of-the-mill costume jewellery retailing and, taken in combination with the Regent Street store, it gives the brand a commanding position, in London at least.
Swarovski
Founded: by Daniel Swarovski in 1895
Turnover in 2006: 2.37 billion (£1.77 billion)
Worldwide portfolio: 1,150 stores and concessions
Regent Street flagship: 1,200 sq ft (111 sq m)
Swarovski Crystallized Cosmos and Lounge, Great Marlborough St: 4,520 sq ft (420 sq m)
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