When Hong Kong Disneyland opens next month one of the shops onsite will be stocked with crystal ornaments and figurines manufactured in China using old-world European craftsmanship.
It all started more than a decade ago when the former director of Asian operations of luxury brand Swarovski, Roland Guettler, found himself out of work. In 1994 the Austrian crystal-maker decided to close its Hong Kong office and centralise its international operations in Vienna - a plan which left Mr Guettler out of the picture after two decades of service.
Having established himself in Hong Kong since 1980, and recently married, he decided to go it alone by sourcing Austrian-made crystal giftware for regional distribution under the fashion company Premier Collections.
The company's early years were a roller-coaster ride. 'When I started I had contracts to supply trophies and corporate gifts to the Jockey Club and Cathay Pacific, and I did a brisk business making souvenirs for the 1997 handover. But after the handover, when the recession hit, everything declined. Cathay cancelled their million-dollar contract with me and the Jockey Club cut back. Everyone else was cutting back and the business of handover souvenirs, of course, was over.'
The economy forced a hard look at the bottom line. In a bid to restructure the company, he bet big that high-quality ornamental glass work could be done in mainland factories, but it would involve a difficult re-engineering.
'I found that the optical instrument factories in China had the technology for cutting and polishing so I taught them to make the ornamental products. They proved extremely quick to learn and are now more skilful, reliable and certainly much less expensive than the Europeans. I now have several factories throughout China manufacturing for me.'