force of nature
Like all things of beauty and splendour, Tiffany & Co is undergoing a momentous transformation of sorts, and yes, there will be diamonds on the other side
The making of Tiffany & Co’s iconic Blue Book.
Esperanza Spalding is on stage, her gold lamé Lanvin trousers reflecting multicoloured gel lights, her face thrown back and framed by gloriously brushed-out curls and her hands clutching the strings of a bass about a foot taller than she is. The classically trained jazz singer is belting out a rendition of her song “Smile Like That” in front of a full house at the historic Cunard Building on New York’s Broadway. Around her smooth bare neck is a fringed necklace twinkling with diamonds designed by Jean Schlumberger for Tiffany & Co years before the 31-year-old multigrammy Award winner was even born. The way she’s wearing it, with complete cool-girl cred, it looks like it could have been designed yesterday.
If it were any other crowd it may as well have been, but this is the Tiffany & Co Blue Book gala, and the room is wall-to-wall with the city’s, if not the world’s, most discerning clientele. Once a year the literati join the glitterati to celebrate the annual catalogue of fine gems
“We’re known for having the best diamonds. We’re known for a quality that we don’t compromise on. But now we’re marrying that with a great theme, so it has narrative. And therefore it has emotion”
from the jeweller with the famous Fifth Avenue address and the iconic blue packaging. With Diane Kruger (dressed in a scarlet red column by Kaufmanfranco), Jessica Biel (cream shoulderless The Row) and Bono’s daughter Eve Hewson (in striped Prabal Garung) lighting up the room (literally – they’re wearing more than 350 carats between them), this is no ordinary launch.
Nor should it be. This year more than any other, the 179-year-old American jewellery retailer is loosening its bejewelled collar and looking to the future. “It’s an evolution that’s happening right now within Tiffany,” says design director Francesca Amfitheatrof, the first-ever female appointed to the role. In just a few short years, the London Royal College of Art-trained jeweller and silversmith has managed to bring an excitement and fresh energy to the fold. That Tiffany T bangle you’ve been hinting at since last Christmas? That collection was Amfitheatrof’s handiwork, a selection of incredibly simple yet stylish pieces intended for every day.
And then there are the showstoppers. 2016 marks her second year heading up the 250 uniquely designed pieces for the Blue Book, but already she’s managed to put her stamp on a publication that was first produced back in 1845. “It’s funny, because if I really have to be honest, I had never really designed a collection of high jewellery,” Amfitheatrof says. “I didn’t really think about it so much because it isn’t the first thing I think about with Tiffany, or at least back then. I always thought of Tiffany everyday jewellery... And then when I was asked to do the first Blue Book I thought, ‘Oh, what do you do?’ I didn’t know how you were meant to do it. So, I drew on my art experience and created and curated a collection and themed it The Art of the Sea. The first time I presented it, it was a laid-out book, 100 pages.”
It wasn’t at all the usual way things were done at Tiffany & Co, but the book went to print virtually unchanged and a new tradition was born. “In my eyes it’s become a privilege to do the Blue Book because I have the confidence of the brand.”
Not just the brand, mind you, but the man credited with shaping the aesthetics of the brand since 1979, John Loring, design director emeritus. You could say authoring 21 books on Tiffany gives him fair claim to call judgement on the current creative direction. Amfitheatrof is definitely passing muster. “She’s brought very new ideas,” he says. “I think it’s good when you have someone with a certain experience in jewellery but not so much experience in jewellery that they’re caught up in a ‘Well, I’ve been doing this for years, I’m just going to keep doing more of the same thing’. Francesca has not been making precious stone jewellery, so her approach to precious stones and colour is completely fresh. I mean, the [Blue Book] collection last year was great, but this year’s collection is a knockout.”
The most recent theme still takes a watery tone, but instead of mining the depths of the deep blue, Amfitheatrof has stayed closer to the surface, looking to the moment in nature where “stillness bursts into beauty” in a collection she’s dubbed The Art of Transformation. A cluster of jewel-encrusted starfish grouped around the wrist, whimsical yellow-gold frog brooches, a yellow-sapphire and diamond pendant that captures the essence of the ocean’s waves. The designs that actually make it to production stage require tireless hours of craftsmanship to bring them to life, but the effortless way they weave around the body render the future-heirlooms completely modern – no doubt the influence of a busy working mother who instinctively leans towards the pragmatic, even if it is studded in gems.
“Her mixture of colour and shape... Jewellery designers who have been designing jewellery for many years – and I’ve worked with a lot of them – are going to articulate things in very classic ways,” says Loring. “It’s wonderful that Francesca is not the least bit interested in those classic ways, because, why do the same thing all the time? She simply designs with what she feels and what works.” That means pieces aren’t necessarily symmetrical, perfectly imperfect if you will. And big. “She’s certainly not afraid of scale!”
In a way, Amfitheatrof is ushering the great American brand into its inevitable future, melding the old with the new, sophistication with youthfulness, tradition with vision. “We’re known for having the best diamonds. We’re known for a quality that we don’t compromise on in any shape or form. We’re known for great craftsmanship,” she says. “But now we’re marrying that with great creativity and a great theme, so that it has narrative. And therefore it has emotion.”
One flick through the glossy pages of the iconic Blue Book and it’s difficult not to be swept away. Just ask Loring. “It’s hard to look at this underwater transformation and then not have Ariel’s song from Shakespeare’s The Tempest come to mind immediately. I mean, ever since Francesca announced this I can’t get it out of my head. Part of the lyrics are: ‘Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes… But doth suffer a sea-change, into something rich and strange.’”