Sort of like Chain Chain Chain!!!!! Yes, too much Chain and metal these days seems to hurting the bead Industry Bottom line if you have not heard, the famous JABLONEX has been liquidated, out of here, finito!! with Preciosa buying up the prime pieces. Namely, Ornela, the seed bead manufacturer, Zasada the glass rod maker and more. The so called JABLONEX brand will be phased out slowly with new advertising by Preciosa/Ornela starting up soon in Bead N Button. The funny thing here that nobody knew is that Swarovski owned 25% of Jablonex. People use to tell me when Swarovski huffed Preciosa would shiver. Well, those days are over.How did this happen????
JABLONEX, nobody ever knew what they were: A factory, a government agency, a brand or an agent. An insider told me, by the time they tried to brand themselves it was too late. Exposure is key. Preciosa never had that problem. They seemed to ride the coat tails of the Swarovski renaissance of the nineties just fine. Another Insider had said to me, Swarovski needs Preciosa the same was Microsoft needs Apple. Competition keeps the monopoly regulators happy. Except, with crystal, you can throw that out the window: China!!!! Apple and Microsoft can manufacture in China and can control their brand, quality w/o much(relatively) infringement.
I guess you really can't patent a crystal or a bead, its been around for centuries.
I just think Swarovski had to let go of their Czech/JABLONEX presence. China was and is causing so much havoc that did they really care about Preciosa anymore. The fire polish business is too limited and seed beads were just a hassle. Actually, two weeks ago somebody actually told me they saw Chinese crystal that were nicer than Swarovski: metallic colors to be specific. Swarovski is diverse and a marketing machine even if glitz is dead, they will throw their sparkles in your face regardless!!!
