The swan, a clutch of new collaborations, a retrospective exhibition — and gold galore — take center stage as Swarovski kicks off its 130th anniversary celebrations this month.

The Austrian crystal specialist is unveiling its Vienna Collection, inspired by its long-necked emblem; seven guest designers as part of the Creators Lab series, and a Hollywood stop for its “Masters of Light” exhibition that underscores its cultural and commercial relevance.

“For us, 130 years was a unique opportunity to communicate our values to customers,” Alexis Nasard, Swarovski’s chief executive officer, told WWD in an exclusive interview Monday, referring to its devotion to “joyful extravagance” and self-expression, its unique positioning as a purveyor of “pop luxury,” and its history of craftsmanship, creativity and cultural connections.

Nasard stressed it’s important for luxury brands today to build “cultural capital” so that the “customer feels that by collaborating with this brand, or by purchasing this brand, they’re buying into something bigger than themselves.”

“It is really important to always maintain an equilibrium between zeitgeist and heritage,” he explained over Teams. “We have a unique savoir-faire in creating and cutting crystals, which are very beautiful and have unique properties. We have creativity. We have quality. This is what any luxury brand needs to be credible and sustainable over time. But what the brand has, in addition to this, is what I call unapologetic modernity, always in the zeitgeist.”

To wit: Look out for the next wave of its holiday campaign featuring its global ambassador Ariana Grande, a new Osaka flagship that opened Monday amid World Expo 2025 in the Japanese city — and also the unexpected, like Beyoncé Knowles-Carter wearing Swarovski jewelry during her “Cowboy Carter” tour.

“These events are not always engineered by us. We often become the natural choice of designers and artists,” Nasard noted.

The established and emerging brands that will join the Creative Lab series are still under wraps for a few more weeks, but Nasard suggested they were like-minded, design-driven firms that would push the boundaries of crystal craftsmanship.

“We consider our collaborations with the Creators Lab a very unique opportunity to show that our crystals are an ingredient for superlative creativity and artistic expression,” he said.

“We’re not just an ornament,” he continued, explaining that its litmus test for collaborations is asking, “Could this product have been as artistically impactful if it didn’t have Swarovski crystals? We want the customer to say, ‘Wow, that is a different take on design than anything that I have seen before.’”

That said, Swarovski does sell ornaments — and likely “tens of millions” of swans, which first became the company’s emblem in 1989 and a product line in 2001.

The limited-edition Vienna collection, designed by Swarovski’s global creative director Giovanna Engelbert, pays homage to house founder Daniel Swarovski and the city where he established a brand now synonymous with crystal.

Nasard said references to the swan in that collection range from explicit to subliminal, sometimes “just a curve, a twist, a point or something that could represent feathers.”

“It’s a very beautiful, gracious and seductive animal,” he commented, noting that Englebert and Swarovski conducted an extensive study of swans across the visual arts back in late 2022.

According to Engelbert, what makes the house special — and a fixture in pop culture, bringing sparkle to fashion runways, concerts, galas and theatrical performances — is “the transformative power of crystal, the wonder of creativity and the joy of self-expression.”

Today, the house also designs and manufactures lab-grown Swarovski Created Diamonds and zirconia; jewelry; accessories; homewares, and crystals for the automotive industry.

The Vienna Collection — which includes chokers, ear cuffs, earrings, bracelets, necklaces and a brooch — comes in exclusive gold packaging, that metallic hue also figuring in window displays and activations in select stores for the “130 Years of Joy” celebrations.

The anniversary program extends to a special activation at the World Expo in Osaka, and a “festive takeover” of the Swarovski flagship in Paris on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées.

All of the elements unfurl as Nasard makes steady progress on a turnaround at Swarovski, which found itself in financial difficulty after the pandemic, bringing him on board in 2022 as the first non-family CEO of the company. (The longtime Procter & Gamble executive also headed Kantar and Bata Group earlier in his career.)

Discussing the company’s recent performance amid an inauspicious and volatile market context, he said Swarovski logged 5 percent organic growth in the first half of 2025, with like-for-like growth of 17 percent in the Americas, 9 percent in Europe and 3 percent in Asia, including China, which has been a drag on all luxury players.

What’s more, the jewelry category grew 8 percent in the first six months of the year, outstripping the industry average and confirming market share gains. Watches also performed well, he said.

Swarovski posted a profit in 2024, its first in six years, and is on track to be in the black again this year, Nasard said, crediting operational discipline and the soundness of its LUXignite strategy, which includes the created diamonds collection and curated shopping experiences.

The executive said the brand spies additional runway for expansion in the U.S., where it currently operates around 115 stores.

Hence the “Masters of Light” exhibition hitting Hollywood after stops in Shanghai, Milan and Seoul. The showcase explores Swarovski’s history in entertainment, fashion, design and its longstanding ties to Hollywood as a player in cinema and on the red carpet.

The brand has collaborated with some of Tinseltown’s most important costume designers since the 1920s, and has seen its crystals sparkle on such legendary stars as Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich.

“We thought that would be a very nice opportunity for us to talk about our past, our unique savoir-faire, and to protect the brand into the future,” Nasard said.

Swarovski operates around 2,300 boutiques in more than 140 countries.