Tiffany & Co.’s historic Fifth Avenue flagship finally reopens on April 28 following a four-year gut renovation. And there are surprises to ensure that the store leaves a strong impression on the millions of visitors expected to step through Tiffany’s famous revolving doors each year.
The 10-story, 110,000-square-foot emporium has been rechristened by Tiffany as “The Landmark” — owing to the mega-store’s significance in the jeweler’s 186-year history. It is thought to be the largest jewelry store in the world as well as the largest single-brand luxury boutique.
In lieu of windows, Tiffany commissioned CGI footage of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline that is broadcast floor-to-ceiling on screens that include more than 33 million pixels combined. In line with the jeweler’s sustainability goals, the projections are only run during operating hours.
Tiffany & Co. founder Charles Lewis Tiffany was born to dream, and long before his time, he understood the universal desire to dream about something bigger than one’s self, and from the very first store in New York City in 1837, fantastical window displays became a proud tradition of the House.
The enduring allure of Tiffany windows is captured in the iconic film Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The lead character, played by Audrey Hepburn, is drawn to the window display at the Tiffany flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York. “…The only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany’s. It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there,” she says, which visitors can find The Landmark paying homage to the film throughout the space and in their first ever windows after reopening.
Tiffany’s windows have always acted as public galleries. Accessible to all who walked past, they entertained, surprised and created desire.
When Gene Moore joined the company in 1955, he defined window display as we know it today. Renowned for his radical, witty and topical designs, Moore’s pioneering windows were in touch with the times and occasionally outrageous, using jewelry and diamonds to tell a story worth stopping for. Mixing the extraordinary with the ordinary, he placed legendary Tiffany jewelry with unexpected, everyday materials
Today, art, sculpture, lighting and set design continue to come together in Tiffany windows across the world, creating moments of pure fantasy remembered by all who stroll by. See below the first ever windows from the opening of “The Landmark”.
