Tiffany jewelry has become iconic, not least thanks to the movie with Audrey Hepburn, the characteristic turquoise box and active marketing. The company began with a small New York stationery store. During the American Civil War, she supplied northerners with sabers under her own brand, and only by the beginning of the 20th century gained real fame in the jewelry market.
How Tiffany weaned customers from bargaining and buying on credit
Now Tiffany is one of the most famous and iconic jewelry brands. But in 1837, when a small stationery store opened in downtown New York, there was little talk of jewelry.
Store founder Charles Tiffany was the son of a department store owner in Killingley, Connecticut, and had helped his father with the sales since childhood. In 1837, Charles was 25 years old, he borrowed $ 1,000 from his father and, together with a school friend John Young, opened a stationery and gift shop in Manhattan. Of course, some jewelry was sold in the store, but along with other goods.
If Charlie Tiffany and Johnny Young’s shop was famous for anything then, it was, rather, for good china and Bohemian crystal.
And yet – such an innovation as fixed prices. Unlike most stores, where buyers learned the cost from sellers and then might bargain, in the new store, almost from the very beginning, they began to indicate the price of all goods. And then they were not ready to bargain and reduce it. Customers had to pay as much as indicated, or leave the store with nothing.
Another innovation was the sale of goods only for cash, and not on credit, as in many other stores. Of course, such rules repelled some customers, but others were convinced that this was a solid store that definitely sold quality goods.
Since 1845, Tiffany began to send customers a Blue Book product catalog (that is, a blue or blue book). The company is still doing it today. Moreover, if at first the catalog was really rather blue, then later it acquired a characteristic turquoise color (it is also described as the color of a robin’s egg), which is firmly associated with Tiffany. Now it is simply called “tiffany”, and the company patented it at some point.
Back in the 19th century, Tiffany began to pack their jewelry in boxes of this color, decorate pavilions at exhibitions and shops with this color.
Selling expensive gifts and stationery was a great business and brought in a steady and decent income. Nevertheless, Charles Tiffany and his partners decided to take a chance and change the field of activity.
Already in 1847, ten years following the opening of the store, the company had its own production of gold jewelry.
Very timely: in 1848, a wave of revolutions swept through Europe, prices for precious stones fell, which, according to researchers, Tiffany took advantage of, buying up jewelry in European countries.
Subsequently, the company repeated this experience. Since 1885, the Third French Republic began to sell off the collection of French crown jewels. Tiffany became one of the largest buyers, paying a total of regarding half a million dollars.
How Tiffany helped northerners fight with sabers
During the American Civil War, Tiffany discovered another area of activity – the supply of weapons and ammunition to the army. Already in 1862, the company became one of the main suppliers of the northern army, and its stores in New York turned into military depots.
Tiffany supplied a variety of goods – sabers, surgical instruments, flags, uniform parts, awards. By the way, in this case, the company applied the same method as when buying jewelry: it bought military goods in bulk and cheaper than usual from the warehouses of European armies.
All this has become not only a good way to make money and a patriotic gesture, but also a successful marketing ploy. Many items, such as sabers, adorned the Tiffany & Co. brand, as the company had become known by this time. And this despite the fact that the sabers were mainly produced in England, and the blades for them, of course, in Solingen.
Tiffany supplied sabers for the American army until the 1890s. You can still buy weapons with the appropriate brand from antique dealers.
Also, for many decades, the company has been supplying some orders, medals and other state awards. One of these awards – created in 1919, the naval version of the highest military decoration of the United States, the Medal of Honor – was informally called the Tiffany Cross. Because the designers of the company participated in its development.
After the Civil War, Tiffany continued to develop as a jewelry company. By 1868 she already had shops in London, Paris and Geneva. At the same time, she began to actively participate in international exhibitions, in 1867 becoming the first American company to receive an award at the prestigious World Exhibition in Paris.
Already in the 19th century, Tiffany created several standards for the world of jewelry. One of them is a standard in the strict sense: in 1851, the company approved the common 925 silver standard in the USA (925 mg of silver per 1 g of alloy). And in 1886, Tiffany released the Tiffany Setting diamond engagement ring. It proved so popular that it became the de facto standard for such jewelry.
How Tiffany Became a Modern Icon
Although Tiffany began making jewelry and jewels as early as the 1840s, the company’s real fame lies with Charles’s son, Louis Comfort Tiffany. He was an artist and designer, and in 1902, following the death of his father, he became the company’s first director of design.
Among other things, it was he who developed the famous colored glass products that glorified Tiffany – and also began to be called “tiffany” themselves. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Louis Tiffany, along with other designers, created vases, lamps, stained-glass windows and decorations in the Art Nouveau style that was then spreading. They were a mosaic of multi-colored glass, separated by thin copper strips, this method was invented by Louis himself.
The popularity of these products is evidenced by the fact that in the USA the Art Nouveau style itself was sometimes called “tiffany”.
Like other Art Nouveau works, glass lamps and stained-glass windows by Louis Tiffany are characterized by floral ornaments and smooth forms.
At the same time, Tiffany began to approach the creation of jewelry more and more seriously. The company hired gemologists, experts in precious and semi-precious stones, who traveled the world in search of unusually colored stones. Several new types of such stones were introduced by Tiffany itself.
So, in 1902, it was kunzite – a pink crystal, named following the gemologist George Kunz, who discovered it. In 1910, Tiffany introduced morganite, a stone of a different shade of pink found in Madagascar and named following financier John Morgan. Tiffany was looking for new stones for jewelry and subsequently: for example, in 1974 the company spun a bright green tsavorite crystal, which until then was known only to specialists.
Another stone associated with Tiffany was a 129-carat yellow diamond bought by the company in 1878. The company presented it at various exhibitions and used it in campaigns. So, it was inserted into the necklace in which Audrey Hepburn was photographed for the film “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”.
At the beginning of the last century, Tiffany was actively developing. Its sales rose from $7 million in 1914 to $17.7 million in 1919. In the Roaring Twenties, following the First World War, the company’s business continued to go uphill on the wave of a general increase in wealth and attention to luxury.
The Great Depression hit Tiffany quite hard, so that by 1932 its sales had fallen very sharply, amounting to only $ 2.9 million. The entire 1930s remained difficult for Tiffany, the company suffered losses and laid off employees. During World War II, Tiffany recalled the experience of the American Civil War. The company engaged in the production of goods for the army, including parts for anti-aircraft guns, fighters, etc.
After the Second World War, it seemed that the brand’s best days were over. Sales gradually recovered, but by 1955 they reached only $ 7 million, that is, the level of 1914 (and this is without taking into account inflation for 40 years).
How Tiffany Became Iconic
This continued until the 1960s, when the company began to experience a new rise. He is associated with Walter Hoving, who became CEO of Tiffany in 1955, and then became the company’s largest shareholder. It was he who came up with the idea that the brand concept needs to be revised. And he decided that in addition to expensive jewelry, Tiffany would also sell more affordable jewelry. For example, silver rings costing only $3.5. All this had a positive impact on sales, which by 1977 had reached $60.2 million.
At the same time, Hoving hired several well-known designers at Tiffany, including Jean-Michel Schlumberger and Elsa Peretti. Their works are now in the collections of many world design museums.
It was during this period that the Tiffany brand became truly iconic. An important role in this was played by the American writer Truman Capote, who published his novel “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” in 1958. But more importantly, in Hollywood, this work was made into a film in 1961 with Audrey Hepburn in the title role. By the way, neither in 1958 nor in 1961, not only the modest Holly Golightly, but also the daughter of the store owner might not have had breakfast “at Tiffany’s” for one simple reason: there was no cafe in the store. It was only opened a few years later.
Mentions of the brand, jewelry or Tiffany stores appear in many other films and TV shows: these are Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Sleepless in Seattle, Sex and the City, James Bond films and many others.
The brand is advertised by a variety of celebrities, among them were the singer Beyoncé, rapper Jay-Z, actress Natalie Portman. Tiffany has long used for purposes and celebrity purchases in its stores. So, the company proudly noted that it was from her that in 1904 the future US President Franklin Roosevelt bought a ring to propose to his future wife Eleanor. And the fact that in honor of the birth of one of his children, another American president, John F. Kennedy, gave a Tiffany brooch to his no less (and possibly more) famous wife, Jackie.
In 1980, Tiffany introduced another of its iconic pieces, a gold heart with an inscription on a chain. During this period, the company still seeks to democratize its jewelry, for example, it launched a collection with streetwear brand Supreme. In the same years, Paloma Picasso, daughter of the famous artist Pablo Picasso, became the company’s designer.
In January 2021, Tiffany bought the LVMH concern, which owns many luxury goods manufacturers, including Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior. The deal amounted to $ 16 billion. So Tiffany once more became a private company, as under Charles Tiffany. Now the company has more than 300 stores in different countries. Experts note that the new owner once more decided to slightly change the concept of Tiffany – now the brand seems too democratic and massive, so they want to return a little of its former luxury.
