Tiffany & Co.

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tiffany & Co.

logo
legal form Corporation
ISIN US8865471085
founding September 18, 1837
Seat New York City , United States
management Alessandro Bogliolo, CEO
Number of employees 13,100
sales 4,170,000,000 USD
Branch Manufacturing
Website www.tiffany.com
As of January 31, 2018

Tiffany & Co. is a 1837 in New York City , was established jeweler from the United States .

The company is internationally known for high-priced jewelry , wristwatches , precious stones and accessories and has a global network of branches with 315 of its own stores (as of 2018).

Company history

Tiffany & Co. shop on Vienna's Kohlmarkt (2009)
Tiffany - Blue Box, the company's gift box
Atlas sculpture above the entrance to the New York flagship store

Foundation and advancement

On September 18, 1837, Charles Lewis Tiffany , who was from Connecticut and trained at his father's cotton factory, opened a stationery and haberdashery store in Manhattan with his school friend John Burnett Young on Broadway 259. Tiffany's father gave him a thousand dollars for this borrowed. The business was called Tiffany & Young . Income of just $ 4.89 was recorded on the first day. Nevertheless, the business was able to hold up, although the prices were fixed and not negotiated as was usual at the time. In 1841, Tiffany and Young took on a business partner named Jabez Lewis Ellis, and from then on they traded as Tiffany, Young & Ellis . The range was expanded to include silver goods and watches, among other things. In 1845, high-priced jewelry was added and the Blue Book , an order catalog, was launched. Between 1847 and 1870, Tiffany moved his store within New York City three times. Trading in diamonds and Swiss watches began in 1848 , and Tiffany made gold jewelry herself for the first time. The international expansion began in 1850 with the opening of a shop in Paris . The following year, after purchasing the New York silversmiths from John C. Moore, Tiffany adopted the sterling silver standard previously little known in the US , which was later recognized by the US government. In 1851 the Swiss watch manufacturer Antoine Norbert de Patek ( Patek Philippe ) visited the USA and negotiated a contract with Tiffany for the sale of Patek watches.

1853 Tiffany paid from its business partners and the company named in Co. Tiffany & order. During the Civil War he supplied the American armies with swords, flags and surgical instruments. At the world exhibition in Paris in 1867 , Tiffany was awarded first place for its silver work. In 1868, Tiffany converted the company into a public company and opened a branch in Geneva . In 1874, the company opened its own watch factory in Geneva ( sold to Patek Philippe in 1878 ). The first branch in London followed . Tiffany & Co. was now a well-known dealer in silverware, jewelry, precious stones and watches.

The trademarked Tiffany blue, a turquoise blue, ( Hex value : # 0ABAB5) has been the company color since 1878 and can also be found on gift packaging and shopping bags. Over the years, Charles Tiffany has specialized in acquiring, processing and selling particularly beautiful pieces of jewelry and gemstones in his branches. For example, in 1878 a particularly large yellow rough diamond imported from South Africa ( The Big Hole ) for 18,000 dollars, which after processing was named Tiffany diamond due to its splendor. The diamond is on display today on the first floor of Tiffany's Fifth Avenue store in New York.

Charles Tiffany bought crown jewels from France (1887) and Spain and was known worldwide as a luminary in the field of diamond jewelry, he was called the 'King of Diamonds'. His customers included not only wealthy citizens, such as the New York upper-class families Vanderbilt, Astor and Whitney, but also monarchs. American presidents such as Abraham Lincoln , Franklin D. Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy also bought from Tiffany & Co. over the course of time. He was among the first at the Paris World's Fair in 1889 and the Paris World's Fair in 1900 , where Charles Tiffany presented his collections Awards excellent. This meant that he was appointed court jeweler by European royal houses and the Austrian emperor as well as the Ottoman sultan Abdülhamid II and the Russian tsar Nicholas II (Russia) .

Tiffany in the 20th century

Tiffany died in 1902, and his son Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933) then joined the company. Tiffany Jr., inventor of Tiffany glass art , had previously worked as an independent glass and jewelry designer and had organized the redecoration of the White House on behalf of US President Chester A. Arthur in 1882 . Tiffany also designed the Congressional Medal of Honor (1917) and the Great Seal of the United States (1885). In 1940 the New York branch moved to its current address at 727 Fifth Avenue. The facade of the house is adorned to this day by an approximately 2.70 meter high sculpture, which now appears green with age patina, depicting atlas (mythology) , which carries a wall clock above it instead of a globe. The sculpture had been created for the company's previous address in 1853 and served as a public clock for New Yorkers. Shops in Europe were closed with the beginning of World War II.

Prominent customers in the mid-20th century included Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis , Elizabeth Taylor , Diana Vreeland, Duchess of Windsor, Greta Garbo , Mona von Bismarck, Rachel Lambert Mellon, Jayne Wrightsman, CZ Guest, Gloria Guinness, Françoise de Langlade, Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, Lyn Revson, and Audrey Hepburn .

Takeovers and IPO

Tiffany sales began to decline in the mid-1950s. The American entrepreneur Walter Hoving (1897–1989) acquired the majority of Tiffany & Co. in 1955 and remained managing director of the company until 1980. Under Hoving's leadership, sales increased from about $ 7 million in the mid-1950s to about $ 100 million in 1980. In 1956, the French jewelry and fashion designer Jean Michel Schlumberger (1907-1987) was hired by Tiffany & Co. His pieces of jewelry, shaped by nature and set with jewels, are still considered Tiffany classics today. In the early 1960s, Lady Bird Johnson commissioned Tiffany to redesign the porcelain in the White House. From 1963 onwards, stores outside of New York opened in the United States, in San Francisco, Houston, Chicago and Beverly Hills. In 1972, the expansion in the Pacific region began through a collaboration with the Japanese department store Mitsukoshi. In 1974, Tiffany & Co. invited designer Elsa Peretti to create pieces of jewelry for the company. In 1980 this invitation was made to Paloma Picasso . Frank Gehry , who started designing jewelry for Tiffany in 2006, is the last external Tiffany designer to date.

In 1979 Tiffany & Co. was bought by Avon Products and Hoving retired in 1980. As a result, the reputation of the Tiffany brand suffered as increasingly cheap goods were sold in order to reach wider groups of buyers. In 1984, Avon manager William R. Chaney, with the support of Bahrain-based investment company Investcorp, organized a debt-financed takeover , took over the management himself and went public in 1987. Tiffany's largest shareholders to date include The Vanguard Group , Qatar Holding / Investcorp, Lone Pine Capital, JPMorgan Chase , BlackRock and others.

Under Chaney the quality of the goods was improved and the product range expanded. Tiffany perfume has been available since 1987. In 1986, the first foreign Tiffany store opened in London after the Second World War. The first Tiffany store in Germany opened its doors in Munich in 1987.

The cooperation between Tiffany and Patek Philippe, originally started in 1851, continues to this day. For example, Patek watches are offered in selected American Tiffany stores, where only Tiffany products are usually sold worldwide, some of which bear the logos of both companies. A Patek Philippe Salon was set up in 2008 in the Tiffany branch in New York (5th Ave.).

In 2000, was Foundation Tiffany & Co. Foundation established that environmental protection and social responsibility is dedicated to the company. In 2015, the Tiffany wristwatch collection was reissued. As of April 2015, Frenchman Frederic Cumenal, a former LVMH manager, was Tiffany's CEO . He succeeded Michael J. Kowalski, who had been with the company since 1983 and CEO of Tiffany since 1999. Cumenal was laid off in February 2017 due to disappointing sales figures, briefly replaced by Kowalski and inherited in July 2017 by Alessandro Bogliolo, a former Diesel (fashion label) and Bulgari manager. In late November 2019, LVMH made an offer for Tiffany of approximately $ 14.5 billion. On November 25 of the same year, it was announced that the offer for $ 16.2 billion had been accepted.

Retail stores

The store at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street is also a tourist attraction as the company's flagship, not least because of the 1961 feature film Breakfast at Tiffany's with Audrey Hepburn . The former Tiffany and Company Building on 38th Street was included in the National Register of Historic Places with the number 78001886 added as a National Historic Monument.

At the end of 2016, a total of six of the worldwide sales outlets were located in Germany, including on Münchner Residenzstrasse , Goethestrasse in Frankfurt , Königsallee in Düsseldorf , Neuer Wall in Hamburg , KaDeWe in Berlin and Breuninger in Stuttgart . The only Austrian branch has been located at Kohlmarkt 8-10 in Vienna since 2006 . In Switzerland there is a branch at Bahnhofstrasse 14 in Zurich , one at Zurich Airport and, since 2015, one at 21 Rue du Rhône in Geneva .

Tiffany engagement ring

Tiffany Setting Solitaire Ring (Engagement Ring)

The Tiffany engagement ring story begins in 1886 when Charles Lewis introduced the solitaire setting to Tiffany . The setting is characterized by the fact that the diamond receives a lot of light, which emphasizes its brilliance. If the setting has 6 prongs, it is called the classic variant of the Tiffany engagement ring - with a 4-prong setting, it is a classic, modern version. In the USA in particular, the classic solitaire ring is understood as a symbol for the engagement ring. In Japan, engagement ring sales account for 41% of total Tiffany Japan sales. In Europe, engagement rings account for 25% of sales.

Applied procedures for changing gemstones

According to Tiffany's Enhancement Policy , the company accepts "enhancements" to gemstones that "are solely intended to enhance the beauty of the stones." The following are accepted:

Tiffany and the sport

Tiffany manufactures the Vince Lombardi Trophy , the winner's trophy for the Super Bowl , the annual final of the North American professional football league NFL .

Since this trophy is not a challenge cup, the Vince Lombardi Trophy is made anew every year. In addition to the ideal value that this trophy has in the form of a full-size football, it also represents a not inconsiderable material value, because it is made from sterling silver with a value of around 25,000 US dollars.

The Vince Lombardi Trophy is not the only trophy that Tiffany makes, however. Since 2000, the company has also manufactured the trophy for the World Series and the trophy for the NASCAR Sprint Cup . But the awards are also regularly designed and produced by Tiffany for other sporting events, for example in sports such as golf or tennis.

literature

  • Ingrid Haslinger: Customer - Kaiser. The story of the former k. u. k. Purveyors to the court . Schroll, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-85202-129-4 .

Web links

Commons : Tiffany & Co.  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Tiffany & Co. 2017 Form 10-K Report , accessed June 24, 2018.
  2. ↑ Tiffany & Co. History , tiffany.com, accessed December 4, 2016.
  3. ↑ Continued: Tiffany & Co., Chronological Company History. In: magazinUSA.com. Retrieved February 16, 2011 .
  4. ^ William L. Hamilton: Seeing The Future In All Its Hues. In: New York Times . January 10, 2002, accessed February 16, 2011 .
  5. ↑ Tiffany Blue. A legendary color. In: Issue Magazine. Retrieved February 16, 2011 .
  6. ↑ The Story of Tiffany: King of Diamonds , tiffany.de, accessed December 4, 2016.
  7. ↑ Tiffany Flagship , tiffany.com, accessed December 4, 2016.
  8. ↑ Walter Hoving; Tiffany's No-Nonsense Leader , nytimes.com, Nov. 29, 1989
  9. ↑ Avon to sell Tiffany, 5 years after it took over , nytimes.com, June 20, 1984 (Eng.)
  10. ↑ Tiffany's next sale: its stock , nytimes.com, March 25, 1987 (Eng.)
  11. ↑ CNN Business: Tiffany & Co. cnn.com, accessed November 19, 2019.
  12. ↑ The Patek-Philippe Salon , tiffany.de, accessed: December 7, 2016.
  13. ↑ Luxury giant LVMH reaches for the precious jeweler Tiffany manager-magazin.de, October 28, 2019.
  14. ↑ LVMH adorns itself with Tiffany manager-magazin.de, November 25, 2019.
  15. ↑ Tiffany at the Kohlmarkt. ORF, 2006, accessed on October 7, 2009 .
  16. ↑ Tiffany Gemstone & Pear Jewelry, Tiffany & Co, 2007; Quote p. 7
  17. ↑ Tiffany & Co - More Than Just Diamonds , May 13, 2014.