New less-formal line aimed at younger shoppers

Reed Krakoff, the designer who catapulted Coach to fashion prominence, and made it a $5 billion handbag Goliath, has officially traded in his leather for diamonds.

Hired by Tiffany & Co. last year as chief artistic director, he was brought in to overhaul the iconic jewelry brand’s design, attract younger shoppers and reverse an extended sales slump. On Tuesday, Krakoff released his debut collection, dubbed “Paper Flowers,” a line that serves as a vital piece of Tiffany’s strategy to introduce more items and more often. By shaking things up and keeping product lines fresh, the jeweler’s executives hope to inject some excitement into a dusty brand in serious need of a revamp.

Chief Executive Alessandro Bogliolo, a former executive at Italian luxury jeweler Bulgari, took over Tiffany last year. In March, he outlined his plan to revitalize the company by tweaking marketing and dramatically altering its stores to draw more customers. At the same time, he sought to shore up Tiffany’s procurement and IT operations while enhancing its capability to sell jewelry online. The initial signs are promising: same-store sales, a key retail metric, turned positive on a currency-constant basis last quarter.

Now comes the new product. The platinum bracelets, pendants and earrings in the “Paper Flowers” collection have a floral motif with asymmetrical petals covered in diamonds and pops of blue tanzanite. The centerpiece is a diamond bib necklace dressed in 68 carats of round and pear-shaped diamonds. It takes five months to make.

Krakoff ’s whimsical designs are meant to eschew formality, despite the extravagant materials used to create them. As the designer puts it, it’s “about stripping away all of the rules associated with fine jewelry.” The prices? $2,500 to $790,000.

The 181-year-old luxury house has long relied on hit products to lure shoppers, so each new line is closely watched in the hope that it’ll be the next headliner. Yet the company has had trouble developing new stars of late. Old styles of necklaces and pendants, designed decades ago by such names as Elsa Peretti and Paloma Picasso, remained its top draws as new items failed to catch on. Tiffany seeks to help remedy that with a new 17,000-square-foot workshop near its New York headquarters, a design playground for its most skilled craftspeople.

Bogliolo said what’s most important is that a woman would want to wear the glitzy jewelry. He’s betting Krakoff will make that happen.

Krakoff