To modernize, Tiffany thinks outside the blue box
Classic jewelry company is banking on Reed Krakoff’s reputation for breezy elegance and revitalization for Paper Flowers collection
Tiffany & Co. has temporarily painted New York blue — Tiffany blue, of course.
A series of subway stations, coffee trucks and even the city’s iconic yellow cabs bear the immediately recognizable turquoise hue.
It’s all very effective Instagram bait for the launch of Paper Flowers, the latest collection from the storied jewelry brand, and the first from chief artistic director Reed Krakoff, who joined Tiffany & Co. last year.
Krakoff, 54, cut his teeth at Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Coach, which he famously transformed into a $5-billion mega-brand anchored by its handbags.
Now Tiffany & Co. is hoping to capitalize on Krakoff’s ability to make things cool girls want. His indefinable breezy elegance infuses the new collection, which offers both fine and high jewelry pieces — a first for Tiffany, with prices ranging from $2,500 to almost $800,000.
I caught up with Krakoff in the Fifth Ave. flagship store to talk about his modern approach to a classic brand.
On the spirit of the collection: “We talked about how people don’t want to put things away in a box and take them out only occasionally. People don’t dress the way they used to: Some women carry a very expensive handbag with jeans, or they wear a couture dress with flats. We want to interpret that kind of free personal interpretation of jewelry — high jewelry — with this collection. You’ll see pieces that are quite extraordinary and very fantastical, and then you’ll see pieces within the same collection that you’ll wear with a T-shirt. I like the idea of allowing people to pick and choose the pieces and wear them however they want.” On the inspiration for the collection: “There are an enormous number of floral motifs that Tiffany has referenced ... We wanted to reinterpret it in a much more modern, simple and graphic way.” On the Paper Flowers concept: “We started playing with cutouts of flowers, which turned into paper flowers. We had these petals, so we started thinking of how we could combine them in a way that felt like it was made by hand and artisa- nal. The idea of this pin holding together the petals was something that brought together the idea of artisanship and nature in one place.” On the collection’s iris motif: “The idea came from watercolour drawings from the 1800s. Iris is also the main note of our fragrance, so there was something both contemporary and historical about it. It seemed like a good blending of those two things.” On his goal for the collection: “It’s very much this balancing of modernity, tradition, artisanship, quality, but never too much of one. It has to be special. It has to be something you just fall in love with. That’s the idea behind of all of this — to be taken away by something, not to see something as just another ring.”