Nathalie Colin

Nathalie Colin is a French Creative Director born in 1966 in the East of France. In 2006, she was appointed by Swarovski as Creative Director for the Consumer Goods Business division (CGB), in charge of modernizing the brand. She is still currently leading all creative studios, in charge of the international collections of jewelry, watches, accessories, and crystal living. Nowadays, Swarovski Crystal Business has a global reach with approximately 2,680 stores in around 170 countries, more than 26,000 employees, and revenue of about 2.6 billion euros (in 2016).^[1]

Biography

Nathalie Colin was born on April 17, 1966, in the East of France in a small town, Cornimont (Vosges, 88). Both parents work in the textile industry, and inspire her interest for fashion, from an early age. She loved to cut out dresses for her dolls, in the fabric swatches that her father brought home.^[2] She learned how to draw, thanks to her mother’s skills.

At the age of 14, she founded a fine art group, organized art exhibitions, and always volunteered to take the lead to perform lead role in acting classes, and in creative projects. After her Baccalauréat Mathematics & Physics, she joined the Hypokagne class at Lycee Henri Poincaré in Nancy. She then graduated from the Institut de Commerce de Nancy,^[3] a higher business education based on a unique creative concept based on the moto “creative thinking makes the difference”. She pursued trainings at Benetton in Paris and Boston (US) and decided to complete her education with a complementary education program at the well-known Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC. During that time, she worked for Perry Ellis in NYC in the merchandising department, where she learned from Marc Jacobs, the current creative director.^[4]

Back to Paris in 1990, she started to work as Marketing Director^[5] for Promostyl, a trend-forecasting agency, and traveled extensively the world to consult international brands in the luxury, beauty, fashion, accessories, & electronic fields. In 1998 she founded her own creative agency Cultural Sushi, a design agency specialized in cross-cultural^[6] creative projects across Europe and Asia. In 1999 & 2000 she relocated to Beijing, China, to start an apparel brand with Olivier Lapidus for a Chinese company (Yimian Group).

Swarovski career

She leaves her agency in 2006 to join Swarovski as Creative Director, keen to strengthen the "on-trend" signature^[7] of Swarovski and convinced by the creative potential of crystal. “The material is very versatile and offers us a great design playground – colours, shapes, sizes are almost endless.”^[8]

As Creative Director, Nathalie has played a prominent role in establishing Swarovski as a key player in the international fashion and jewelry scene. Her first creative contribution to the jewelry market was to impose color in the mainly transparent world of crystals. Nathalie Colin also always stood for the internationalization of her Swarovski team to maximize inspirations: “Some fifty people, twenty different nationalities, and all ages! I wanted this diversity, fruitful in creation.”^[9]

From 2014 to June 2016, her Creative Director role extended as well to Executive Vice President Communication.^[10] Her vision was to build further consistency across all creative aspects of the Swarovski CGB division from products and collections through communication campaigns, branding, PR & media. In that role, she had close collaborations with Miranda Kerr and Karlie Kloss, the brand muses, and talents in the fashion industry such as Edward Enninful, Bryanboy, Pat McGrath, Craig Mc Dean, or Nick Knight.

Since 2006, Nathalie has always been a core member of the Management Board, contributing to define & implement a winning business strategy for CGB. As of July 1, 2016, Nathalie is now reporting to Robert Buchbauer,^[11] Swarovski Executive Board Member and Swarovski family member. She joined the CGB Management Board, securing that creative vision remains a central focus in strategic brand discussions, and building on Swarovski core value, “innovation”: “innovation is the key, and it is part of the Swarovski brand’s DNA since the very creation of the company in 1895. Not only through technical innovation, but also through a will to constantly stay tuned with our consumers and with the fashion, art, and the music scene. This is a fascinating process to translate Swarovski’s codes into today’s parameters.” said Nathalie Colin in a 2015 interview.^[12]

Publications

Keen on sharing her passion for jewelry, Nathalie released the “Multiface(t)s, style yourself with jewelry” book in 2012. The book provides readers insights on how to use jewelry to « be yourself, and try to pick the right jewels and accessories to enhance your personality and your physical assets ».^[13] Nathalie Colin continues this initiative thanks to an active presence on social media platforms including Instagram, where she shares with her followers daily jewelry styling tips.^[14]

References