Swarovski releases its Holiday 2022 issue, starring supermodel Bella Hadid. Creative Director Giovanna Engelbert creates fairland-worth sparkle for Hadid in the brand’s #OpenThe Wonder campaign lensed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott.

Swarovski News Update

Kanye West, legally known as Ye unleashes antisemitic hate

We have news today that Kanye West is buying Parler, a right-wing social media site with a comparatively small of subscribers. NBC estimates 500,000 active subscribers. The deal comes on the heels of an intense period of controversy since Kanye — legally known as Ye — paraded White Lives Matter shirts in an impromptu Paris fashion show during October’s recent fashion week.

The show was followed by an intense period of social media, antisemitic screeds, including his promise to go Def Con 3 on the Jewish people.

Bella Hadid’s recent reflections

Without naming her client, Bella did ruminate in a recent interview on the contained backlash she received this year about her new role as the Swarovski ambassador.

Bella’s pro-Palestinian, perceived as anti-Israeli posts on IG, created pushback by some Israeli jewelry stores and dealers against Swarovski.

Bella Hadid's Swarovski Ambassador Role Hits a Speed Bump in Israel AOC Jewelry News

Clearly, Bella found any criticism against her in Israel as unfounded and out-of-line, causing her unnecessary pain and emotional angst.

Like so many aspects of life, all the facts reviewed together can present a more complicated story.

Bella Hadid condemns recent social media antisemitism

Last week, Bella Hadid did not specifically call out Kanye West, but she noted on Instagram that it would be a “disservice” to herself and her loved ones if she did not “speak up.” She went on to specifically condemn antisemitism and the “things” that have been shared about it recently on “public platforms”.

“To allow any form of antisemitism to slip by, as desensitized as the world has become, it would be a disservice to my friends, the families I have grown up with, the people I love and work with, myself, and even the Palestinian cause as a whole,” she wrote.

She then emphasised that her Palestinian community does not stand for “hatred or violence,” adding that anti-Semitic social media posts “will never be okay”.

“I will continue to be a voice for the innocently targeted no matter who you are or where you come from,” Hadid continued. “With that being said, this is NOT okay. Antisemitism, or targeting any innocent Jewish person, anywhere, will never be okay. I can’t stress how important it is for my following to hear this loud and clear.”

Hadid then acknowledged how “scary” it is to live in a place where “discrimination or death wishes” are part of everyday life and how concerning it is when people ignore something “horrendous” on social media.

AOC has never found Bella Hadid to waver on the positions she embraces, and these words should put to rest any anti-Bella sentiment in Israel. If we know her as well as we believe, Bella will speak again on antisemitism from Kanye West, the Republican party’s alt-right members, or anyone else.

America is in crisis around growing antisemitism, misogyny and racism in our country. My own move to Virginia came after the tiki torches Unite the Right 2017 Rally in Charlottesville and the chants of angry white men shouting “Jews will not replace us.”

Rather than run away from the horror of Charlottesville, I decided to confront the beast more directly by moving to the home of the Confederacy.

In his battle with Adidas, Kanye West has sent AOC to the Nazi history books

When AOC addressed the contained pushback against Bella in Israel last spring, we weren’t busy unearthing information about the Nazi past of Adidas. Given everything that is happening in America, I am not judgemental at all about the Europeans.

But it is a fact that because of Kanye West threatening to go Def Con 3 against the Jewish people, I learned more about Swarovski’s past and I better understand the displeasure among some Israeli Jews about Bella’s appointment as the jewelery brand’s ambassador.

Above, the new Swarovski store in Rome via IG.

In 1994, historian Horst Schreiber wrote about Swarovski's past but was not granted access to company archives.

The contemporary Swarovski company commissioned historian Dieter Stiefel as "a step towards dealing with our history in a serious and very pro-active manner," board spokesman Markus Langes-Swarovski said in 2018.

Google search is empty — literally empty — of any information about the investigation except for a Jerusalem Post article and a Wiki entry. Wiki states that the study was not published because, Langes-Swarovski said, "Swarovski is a company that generally tries to keep the owners' personal stories largely out of the public eye because it does nothing for the business.”

Alexis Nasard Joined Swarovski in July 2022

When Alexis Nasard joined Swarovski as CEO, he became the first non-family member to head the firm in its 127 years of existence. Nasard was a senior business advisor at McKinsey & Company, a managing director at Procter & Gamble from 1992 to 2009, and CEO of Bata, a Swiss-based multinational footwear, apparel and fashion assessories company, from 2016 to 2021.