Giovanna Engelbert’s Swarovski Wonder World

Giovanna Engelbert, 45, has brought style and extravagant elegance to the world of Swarovski. She became the first global creative director of the 130-year-old crystal house in 2020 and her joyful, colourful approach has taken Swarovski to the forefront of fashion consciousness.

She began her career as a model with Dolce & Gabbana before moving into styling for L’Uomo Vogue, Italian Vogue and W, but a love of product brought her to Swarovski, where she oversees everything from design, packaging and boutiques to campaigns and events. What does life look like through her crystal lens? 10’s global editor-in-chief, Sophia Neophitou, sat down with this dazzling creative force to find out.

This is 10’s Transformation issue. How do you relate to transformation? Is it an idea you’re comfortable with? Do you thrive on change?

Absolutely. Fashion is based on that, no? On the continuous renewal of the season and on change. That’s in my DNA. I’ve transformed many times within the same life. I think it’s healthy. It keeps me excited and interested. Even if you have the same job for 10 years, you can and must evolve.

Vienna collection ear cuff in ruthenium and Swarovski Crystal by SWAROVSKI

You’ve worn many creative hats. You began as a model then moved to styling and worked with the legends of our world, like Franca Sozzani at Italian Vogue and Anna dello Russo at L’Uomo Vogue. Was that move an easy transition? 

For me to be a model, I was lucky to be born a certain way and at a certain time. I wanted to work in fashion. It just happened that modelling was the first job I could get. But I found out pretty quickly I wasn’t Gisele. I remember the first day I saw her. She arrived for her first casting in Milan. I was like, “Oh my God, what is that?” I love beauty, and I love beautiful girls, but I quickly understood that I was way too opinionated for modelling. Fun fact: I was cancelled from a very important shoot because of it. I was a terrible model.

You weren’t! I saw you modelling. You were amazing.

No, but I found my spot at Dolce & Gabbana. That was my family. It felt good there, but it was an entry door to fashion, a little bit like Edward [Enninful, who started as a model then moved into styling]. Back then, a stylist wasn’t a thing. Now everybody wants to be a creative director, which is the next step up. My mother didn’t understand it. Was I a tailor? Stylists didn’t have their name on anything. But I understood. I wanted to be on the other side of the camera and put the clothes together. I invested everything I made as a model into my new job and met everyone there. The late ’90s and early 2000s were the amazing fashion years. I was very lucky to be young then.

Did that transition feel hard?

It was difficult because you need people to take you seriously, right? It took me years and then when Anna went to Condé Nast [L’Uomo Vogue], that gave me the stamp of approval. But it wasn’t easy. Back then, being nice wasn’t a trend.

No. I remember you saying people behaved quite badly. And there are still people that behave badly. But I feel like your generosity and kindness have always been there.

I did what is called a gavetta [a hard apprenticeship]. In English, it means I rolled up my sleeves.

from left: Vienna collection ear cuffs and necklace in ruthenium and Swarovski Crystal by SWAROVSKI; Vienna collection ear cuff, necklace and cuff in ruthenium and Swarovski Crystal by SWAROVSKI

Everyone does. You have to start like that – there’s no other way.

I started with L’Uomo Vogue, the men’s magazine, my first job. Then, I worked on the women’s title and other international Vogue titles.

You have worked with amazing people, including Edward.

I was a model at D&G when he styled his first men’s show for the brand. I was transitioning to styling and eager to work on the other side. I asked Stefano Gabbana if I could assist this young kid who came from London to style the menswear, and that guy was Edward.

How many years did it take from being a model to becoming a creative entity?

I don’t know, five or six. Another big transition was when I went to New York to work for W in 2010 and started consulting for brands. That’s when I understood product was important for me. I was more excited about that than styling the campaign. I was consulting on products and shows for big luxury brands. I brought the storytelling from the editorial world into the brand and product-making world. This was when I realised it was time to change again, focus on one brand and put everything I learned in those years from different brands into the one house.

You began working with Swarovski in 2016 as the creative director for B2B.

I was still consulting for other brands and doing editorials, but I thought it was a great way to work with this material I love. Then, in 2020, they told me it was time for Swarovski to enter a new era and believed that [I] could do the job. [The brand was restructured, with family members stepping away from the creative and day-to-day running of the company.]

from left: Gema earrings, chokers, necklaces, cuffs and rings in crystals and gold-tone plated by SWAROVSKI; Dulcis Candy bangle and ring in crystals, gold-tone plated and resin by SWAROVSKI

What was your mission at Swarovski and how did you set about achieving it?

I wanted to bring it back to the material, to the crystal. It was so clear that I needed to bring back that glamour and colour, because crystal has colours within. I also wanted something joyous because I started in a very dark time of Covid, which sharpened my focus. I love to combine extravagance and elegance and wanted to bring them together in a bold, but effortless, way.

It’s a huge job, how do you manage it?

I was very excited, almost like a kid at Christmas. But it was frightening because it was big. I’m building, with lots of respect, brick by brick, this new house. You need the stamina, because it’s not just about having the idea. It’s making sure the idea goes out to the world in the way you want, through a big corporation. Young kids, they don’t understand what it takes to get the idea out. It takes a lot of collective effort and everybody needs to believe in the vision and mindset.

It’s not just about what you are going to design. It’s about the whole 360-degree communication of it.

It was never just about the jewellery. One of the first things I did was the packaging. It’s extremely important because that’s the home of jewellery. And because it was Covid and we couldn’t meet, I was doing mock-up boxes by myself, cutting and gluing. I wanted to show the jewellery vertical in the stores, which was something quite crazy because nobody does that. It was a challenge. I was in tears, desperate, because one month before we opened they were falling down.

from left: Dulcis Candy earrings, choker and cuff in crystals, gold-tone plated and resin by SWAROVSKI; Dulcis Candy necklace, bangle and ring in crystals, gold-tone plated and resin by SWAROVSKI

But you fixed it! Part of that 360 idea is making fashion pieces, like the couture looks you designed for the Met Gala this year.

I wanted to push the boundaries of jewellery and fashion at the Met. Those were dream pieces I always had in my head and they exist somewhere between jewellery and ready-to-wear. The construction is incredible. Very challenging, but also fabulous. We have eight different ateliers working together on one look – jewellery, embroidery, couture – the coordination is pretty insane. But it’s fantastic so that’s why we love it.

It’s like fantasy and that’s what we want: to see and be transported into the world of Swarovski.

That’s what Swarovski brings. And all the girls [Adut Akech, Alex Consani and Sora Choi, who attended the Met Gala alongside Giovanna, wearing Swarovski] said, “I want to be a Swarovski girl.” They wanted to be transported into this world. That makes me so happy, because this was the intention. And intentions are very important when you are guiding a brand. Mine was to show beauty. I love beauty, beauty, beauty and fantastical dreams, and I want this to be a wonder world.

I love that, a wonder world.

I think when our language is united with fashion, it is a multiplier. It multiplies at the speed of light. What you do with jewellery, when you direct it to fashion, is multiply it.

You recently launched the Optical diamond collection. Do you approach the design of diamonds differently?

It’s the same team, but a different set of skills for the technical part. The mastery of the diamond is in the cut and Swarovski has always been known for the precision of the cut. The octagon cut was probably one of the first things I thought about because I wanted to have this preparatory cut that was a special octagon – it’s a little bit more elongated than the emerald cut, almost oval. We tried a hexagon, pentagon, even triangle, but the octagon is the perfect gem cut.

from left: Sublima earrings and chokers in rhodium-plated crystals by SWAROVSKI; Idyllia Snowflake body piece in crystals by SWAROVSKI

It’s very good because you know immediately that it’s Swarovski. Your elongated octagon is like a logo, but without a logo.

It’s very classic. I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel, I just wanted to have something comforting. It’s both masculine and feminine because it’s almost an oval, but it’s an octagon.

That gives it masculinity, which I like. Do you draw inspiration from art or nature?

Art is vital for inspiration. One of my favourite artists, Josef Albers, did a thousand paintings of coloured squares. He was the master of squares. That was an inspiration, because you need rigour when you have colour. [Gustav] Klimt was an inspiration from the beginning, because he lived in Vienna around the same time Swarovski was founded [in 1895]. It was the most incredible time for Vienna in terms of arts and culture from the Vienna Secession art movement to psychoanalysis, which was founded by Freud in Vienna.

Has there ever been an idea you haven’t been able to achieve?

No, but things take time. The multicoloured flower set that Ariana Grande wears in the campaign with the blue dress came from a dream I had four years back and we couldn’t craft it. Sometimes you have an idea and it takes a while to land, but we have made almost every dream possible. I’m more patient than when I started, but what it makes me happy about my job is to have a dream and make it come true on a larger scale, so that it can be tangible for a lot of people.

Giovanna Engelbert, Swarovski’s global creative director

It becomes part of their lives.

I like that. What I love about Swarovski is it’s democratic. It leads the democratisation of jewellery. What moves people is a strong message. It comes through in the campaigns, like the holiday one we did with Ariana. One of my wildest dreams was to do a musical with all the colour and costumes and then it happened, with Ariana at the centre. I’ll never forget when I presented the idea to her. She was screaming with joy and jumping up and down.

Why do we all need little sparkle in our lives?

It’s anthropological. Researchers believe we are attracted to light because of survival. In prehistoric times, light was associated with water, without which we can’t survive. When you think about light bouncing off the water, it twinkles. Our attraction to sparkle is about life and survival. Plus, who doesn’t need more joy in their life? It’s such a simple concept and it makes me so happy. I say to the team every day: we are working with the best material.

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