Glass artists John Croucher and John Leggott established Giovanni Glass as a glassblowing studio in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1990. They realised that glass artists need easily- available coloured glass for their work, and decided to manufacture the material itself, incorporating Gaffer Coloured Glass Ltd in 1993.

Gaffer Glass quickly became known for its range of transparent and opal glasses for glassblowing ‘ supplied as colour rods, chips and powders. Research with artist Ann Robinson led to the development of coloured lead crystal glass for casting. Gaffer now employs about 12 people in its Morningside factory in Auckland, NZ, and also has distributors in Australia, Japan, UK and USA.