Collaborations like the Opera Ball are evaluated against three criteria: cultural association, relative scale, and return on investment. “If someone is much smaller than us, they don’t bring value. If they’re much bigger, we become a prop,” he says. The brand is equally deliberate about where it chooses not to play. “I don’t have money to waste. Take sports: what is our natural association? Do you know how many brands are associated with the Olympics?”
He applies the same pragmatism to retail. Swarovski’s earlier attempts to engineer scarcity through store closures ultimately eroded scale. “A hyper-rationalized store network for a brand that is two-thirds impulse purchase was damaging to scale,” says Nasard. “You don’t say to your boyfriend, ‘Let’s book an appointment with Swarovski in May’ — you might do that with Van Cleef & Arpels, but we recognize with humility that we are still impulse, so ubiquity is more important.”
Roughly two-thirds of sales come from Swarovski’s own stores, with around 80% of that generated in bricks-and-mortar locations. Even store design reflects the brand’s positioning: rather than traditional category navigation, merchandising is organized around color and aesthetic, encouraging layering and discovery in a way that mirrors Swarovski’s maximalist styling codes. Meanwhile, Nasard is adamant e-commerce should mirror the in-store experience rather than becoming a discount outlet.
Geography is also an important variable. The US is Swarovski’s largest market, making up 19% of sales, while Europe — which accounts for around 45% of sales — remains a bedrock, with record years in markets including the UK, Germany and Switzerland, Nasard says. Japan is one of Swarovski’s fastest-growing markets, consistently delivering double-digit growth, while China remains a work in progress. “We haven’t cracked it yet,” he admits.
Financially, the reset is beginning to show through. In 2024, the company posted 8% like-for-like revenue growth, reaching €1.9 billion with EBITDA up 14% and operating profit returning to positive for the first time in five years (2025 results will be published next month). Growth has been driven equally by a mix of higher volumes, pricing, and customers trading up, according to Nasard. Over the next two years, Nasard plans to double down on core markets including the US, Europe and Japan, expand newer categories such as charms, and improve productivity, partly through AI.
Luxury at every price
Few brands operate on such a wide pricing spectrum as Swarovski: entry-level charms start at €59, and fashion pieces crafted with crystal can go up to €1,200, while fine jewelry (made from Swarovski lab-grown diamonds) range from €500 to €250,000. Nasard frames that breadth as central to pop luxury — one of the ways Swarovski aims to feel culturally current while remaining a business of scale.
To manage that breadth, Swarovski has introduced a structured strategy spanning low, mid and high-complexity pieces, each governed by distinct rules around distribution and promotions. “We wanted to create a taxonomy that not only encompasses the degree of complexity in the products, but also the price points,” Nasard explains. “It’s a very systematic model to preserve scale while building an image.” Increasingly, that system is supported by advanced analytics, including AI models to optimize pricing and promotional decisions across a dense SKU base.