Tiffany & Co enduring into the future
The year is 2190. Your great great great great great granddaughter has just got engaged. In an era where all known diseases have a cure and human beings are able to take to the skies with individual jet packs it might be tempting to think that nothing would be regonisable to her great great great great great grandparent. But certain things have not changed. Humans still enjoy the taste of fresh fruit, live in homes that were built centuries ago and engagement rings are still being made by Tiffany & Co. The company founded by Charles Lewis Tiffany in 1837 is now 300 years old but the founding principles of quality and design have endured.
This scenario might seem far-fetched but perhaps not that illogical. As long as a wheel is well-oiled it will keep on spinning and there are not many brands as well-oiled as Tiffany & Co. The Tiffany setting was created in 1886, and just like a well-oiled wheel it doesn’t need re-inventing.
Having survived two world wars, the stock market crash as well as the 2008 global financial crash Tiffany & Co engagement rings may continue to grace the fingers of would-be brides for millennia!
Recent news that Tiffany & Co’s profits had exceeded estimates comes as no surprise. A recent overhaul of classic product lines such as Atlas has brought some much needed freshness to the line, whilst the creation of a brand new metal alloy – Rubedo - reminiscent of Edwardian rose gold, created a media frenzy.
Underneath new product launches and the titivation of existing lines lies the equally important job of keeping things exactly as they are! We must not underestimate the importance of monitoring that Tiffany blue does not waver one fraction of a colour away from itself. Or that the classic Tiffany engagement ring be created to the same standard and same proportions as it always has.
Understanding what to change - and what to conserve exactly as it is - cannot be an easy feat, involving a combination of science, art and instinct. Whilst fashions come and go some core values and ideas never change. They are our foundations, our standards by which to measure all other things against.