California Apparel News

To celebrate Swarovski’s 120th anniversary, Markus Langes-Swarovski, executive board member at the Austrian crystal maker and great-great grandson of company founder Daniel Swarovski, was in Los Angeles to introduce the company’s Spring/Summer ’16 collection.

“Enabling creativity lives at the heart of Swarovski,” Langes-Swarovski told a crowd of apparel and accessories designers and executives during the March 5 presentation at the California Market Center. “Without you, we would not exist.”

In 1892, Daniel Swarovski invented a machine that could produce crystals in large quantities—bridging a gap, Langes-Swarovski said, between “cheap rhinestones and fine jewels”—and attracting a fashion clientele that included Coco Chanel.

“We have to reinvent ourselves over and over to cater to our mission for 120 years to enable creativity,” said Langes-Swarovski, who praised the California design community.

“California is very important for us,” he said. “We have our retail stores here, but also we have tremendous clients in costume design and stage dressing. And, of course, with our fashion and jewelry clients, it’s a very influential market. What happens here spreads throughout the whole world.”

Langes-Swarovski introduced Ralf Weinberger, Swarovski’s head of design research intelligence, who introduced some of the trends and themes of the Spring/Summer ’16 season, called “Between Heaven and Earth.”

In general, people across the world are looking to capture a sense of positivity they feel is missing in an increasingly uncertain world, Weinberg said. As a result, some are adopting symbols such as the sun sign, the Hamsa hand, the Greek cross and the Pisces symbol.

“People are starting to wear talismans to make them feel secure,” Weinberger said, adding that these symbols allow us “to communicate without language. Something new is the rise of the emoji, which is talking with symbols.”

Swarovski’s collection was presented in four groups: “The Blossoming of Happiness” is a classic trend featuring floral imagery, tactile details and a mix of pastel rose shades with leaf green and cornflower blue. “The Nature of Strength,” a sportier group, emphasizes health and the “athleisure” trend and includes fluid and diaphanous shapes for garments and jewelry. “The Mythology of Hope” is a romantic trend group that mixes “light and ethereal” washed-out gray shades with light-blue tones and golden metallic sunshine hues. In apparel, there are Greek goddess elements such as ruching as well as veiled looks because “people need to be more anonymous,” Weinberger said. “But it’s less Lady Gaga and more Catherine of Wales.”

“The Power of Belief” is a glamorous trend group featuring shades of gold, royal blue, dark red and iridescent green with an accent of light aquamarine. Shapes and design elements reference stained glass and mosque shapes, Weinberger said.

In accessories, that means cut-out designs that “look as if taken from stained-glass windows,” he said. “Armor aspects are important because we want to protect ourselves from too much information.”

Plus, designers are returning to the Golden Ratio (the mathematical formula that has been applied to art and architecture) “to create an impression of grandeur, of something divine,” Weinberger said. “People do not just consume things, they consume meanings.”