Espace Presse

February 2009

Ballroom Grace Crowned With Glory

SWAROVSKI DESIGNS GLITTERING DEBUTANTES’ HEADPIECE WITH CRYSTALLIZED™ – SWAROVSKI ELEMENTS FOR VIENNA OPERA BALL

World-class designers have long upheld CRYSTALLIZED™ – Swarovski Elements as a crucial force in the arts, film and opera spheres – a noble tradition that continues today, with Swarovski once again creating a breathtakingly elegant crown for debutantes at the renowned 53rd Vienna Opera Ball, 19 February 2009. Designers at the company’s Paris-based atelier have drawn inspiration from nature to create the scintillating crown, a delicately-wrought headpiece that guarantees a regal entrance for the beautiful young women making their society debut.

Over the past century, leading jewellery and costume designers have handcrafted sparkling CRYSTALLIZED™ – Swarovski Elements into magnificent pieces, enhancing the magnetic appeal of countless divas of the screen and stage from Marlene Dietrich, Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe to Nicole Kidman and Renée Zellweger. Stage performers, too, have glittered beneath the spotlights – most famously, the opera diva Maria Callas, who became inextricably linked with the resplendent jewels she wore for every performance, created with Swarovski crystal jewellery stones by Enniomarino Marangoni in his famous Milanese atelier .

With this lustrous cultural history in mind, it is fitting that for the past few years Swarovski has had the honour of designing the debutante crown exclusively for the Vienna Opera Ball. Conceived at the company’s Parisian atelier, the crown is a graceful headpiece of entwining, leaf-shaped forms, embellished with CRYSTALLIZED™– Swarovski Elements and inspired by Swarovski’s Spring Summer 2009 Super Nature collection.

“We are celebrating the surreal beauty of nature and the seamless fusion of the organic and the manmade,” says Nathalie Colin, Creative Director of Daniel Swarovski & Swarovski. “The brilliant Super Nature Crown is timelessly elegant; its shimmering pacific opal stones and twinkling crystal facets convey a poetic message of freedom and joy.” The painstaking creative process begins with mood boards and colour palettes, moving through myriad sketches, material and crystal combinations to create initial samples. These are then refined until every element works perfectly in harmony to create a truly visionary design.

Vienna’s Opera Ball, the highlight of the European ball season, is held at the city’s State Opera House, a splendid neo-Renaissance masterpiece. The dazzling society occasion opens with the arrival of the young debutantes and their partners, and Swarovski is proud to mark this symbolic event with such an exquisite crystal creation. Nathalie Colin captures the fairytale atmosphere, saying: “The young woman wearing this nature-inspired Crown will feel like a modern Eve making her debut in an enchanted world.”