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Welcome to the GiltTrips podcast. I'm your host, Kendra Lockhart. As a goldsmith and

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gemologist, I'll be speaking 24 carat on all things jewelry, metals, and gems. Join

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me plus a few friends to demystify both materials and designs as your private jeweler. Let's

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tune in on these topics and get golden. Tiffany's, a moniker known by all. The world's most famous

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and later branded color. A name synonymous with Audrey Hepburn and sung about by Marilyn

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Monroe, both on the silver screen. America's giant, generational jeweler, and international

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gem purveyor. In today's episode, I'll be taking us through the magic, movements, and

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marketing of the world's largest brand. The chapters will be time stamped in the show notes.

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So let's get into storytime. Who was Charles Lewis Tiffany? He was the son of a cotton

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manufacturing company and General Good's store owner. He was also coming of age in

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the first wave of the industrial revolution and the use of machinery in textiles. After

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10 years of working with his father, he borrowed $1,000 in 1837 and opened a stationery and

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gift shop with a friend from his school days. Within two years, his modest project had expanded

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into glassware, porcelain, clocks, cutlery, and now jewelry. In another two years, the

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caliber of his glass in China had elevated and now the company was making its own jewelry

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in addition to selling that product. After his first decade, he began investing in diamonds

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from overseas as the political turmoil was affecting economies abroad. A few years later,

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he would sell these acquisitions for healthy profits, which likely funded the reorganization

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and expansion of his company into Europe. Now, like any true entrepreneur, his business

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got threatened. So what do you do? Do you scale? Possibly exit? Maybe pivot? In Charles's

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lifetime, he would do all three. But right now, he was facing the Civil War in the United

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States and had the forethought to back burner his jewelry manufacturing and go into war

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materials, weapons, and metals. Well, guess what? America would recycle that model in

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both World War I and World War II. Now, nobody gets to have a flawless track record as a

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business owner, and Charles got caught up and publicly embarrassed in the great diamond

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hoax of 1872. The short version of this is a couple of con artists bought some diamond-cutting

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remnants from Europe and, quote unquote, salted the soil back here in America. What that meant

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is it looked like another gold rush is that diamonds had been found here in the United

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States. Unfortunately, the material that was caught in Europe was originally sourced in

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Africa and had nothing to do with our territory here. So these are not domestic goods. And

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no, we didn't yield a single diamond at the time that this happened. But hold up, this

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visionary Aquarius knew he had a comeback in him. So now, Napoleon's only son and last

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of the lineage dies and France moves from the monarchy model into a republic. Well, who

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shows up to purchase the devalued crown jewels now that royalty is extinct? Good old Chuck

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Tiffany does. And he starts deconstructing and restyling these into pieces back here

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in our gilded age. So now you can have a piece of a former king or queen, which is kind of

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why we had our own revolution from England's regency because that's brilliant branding

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is that we broke away from a crown yet kept the best of what it had to offer. In 1902,

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he passed away in his home in Manhattan in New York at age 90. In his life, he had married

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the sister of that schoolmate and original business owner. He had six kids had become

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a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Yes, the venue of the Met Gala. And his third

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child would continue this legacy. So a little bit about Louis Comfort Tiffany, who was also

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an Aquarius, he went to military Academy for classic schooling, but later became a professionally

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trained painter. At the time of his father's death, the world was entering the art nouveau

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era. And this was just in time for the sun's rise in the media of exquisite glass windows

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and lamp work. Now on to the company's timeline. The birth of the color, the origin of the

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font and the inception of the blue book as a power trio for this company. Tiffany's assets

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had vision and longevity. Traditionally, jewelers used hallmarks to mark their works, which

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is kind of similar to a logo. However, having origins in stationery and being partial to

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lettering, Charles picked a custom font to spell out the company name on the sturdling

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flatware and other fine goods. As for the most famous color in the world, the fact is

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that in the Victorian era, brides loved turquoise and gave me mementos made from this gem, hence

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popularizing the color. I tend to find the Tiffany's version of the color much more

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romantic, given that the founder was more strategic than trendy. Folklore and Tiffany and company

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say that Napoleon III of France had married Empress Eugenie and that she was quite the

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influencer of her era. A Robin's egg blue was her quote unquote signature color. So

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what does a savvy businessman do to woo her attention and patronage? Make that his company

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color. The final move was to debut the combination of the Tiffany's typeface, appropriate named

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quote unquote the Stirling and the color tint together in a catalog. Launched in 1845, the

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Tiffany and company blue book was the first direct mail catalog in the United States to

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feature a broad base of purchasing opportunities from the comfort of one's home. Since then,

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every year this annual publication goes out to feature the upcoming offerings from Tiffany

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and created a paradigm shift in the way that people could shop. If we fast forward to today's

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time, this would be as big as when Amazon happened. Tiffany's mainstream presence made

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them the bearers of beauty in the 1900s. New gems were discovered and marketed quite wisely.

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While the company always had a modest entry level, given that it began in Stirling products

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and garnered initial attention by winning awards created by top silversmiths, the net result

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was that the dominant perception of Tiffany's was the quality. So now imagine if you can

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possess never before known jewel in American design legendary and named after business

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superstars or exotic lands. That would be the never ending conversation piece, which also

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cemented the mythology of Tiffany's. In 1902, the first gem that Tiffany's would name

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was discovered. Kunzeit, a pale ballet pink gem would be named after George Frederick

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Kunz, who was the chief jeweler of Tiffany's. Now what makes him such a big deal? He knew

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his purpose even as a child. George was a self taught mineralogist and such an authority

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on gem specimens that his research landed him a job at Tiffany's and he assumed the

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vice presidency by age 23. The ability to identify this unknown form of spodmene caused

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it to be named in his honor. Previously, he was part of the study of supervising the cutting

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plan for the Tiffany's diamond, a giant yellow found in South Africa 24 years prior

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to Kunzeit. In 1910, another pink gem is introduced to the public, Morganite, which was found

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on an island near Madagascar, which is the bottom right tip of Africa if geography is

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not your best subject. And here's one more power move in marketing to name a jewel after

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one of your top patrons and the guy who had the touch in American investing. JP Morgan

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underwrote 42 companies, financed Tesla's work at one point, made money on gold loaning

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to the US Treasury in the Gilded Age, and then merged with Carnegie Steel, which would

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build out bridges, railroads, and be the parent company to the disastrous subsidized ship

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called the Titanic. His professional life of bolstering economy, expanding transportation,

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solving the arts and faith is his legacy. In 1967, Tansnite, which is my spirit stone

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and personal favorite color, violet, was found in a small area of Tanzania, or Tanzania,

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if you say it that way, and is a remarkable species of gem that shows multiple colors

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on different axes. Violet blue zoosite was not so alluring, so it was dubbed something

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much more romantic for its country of origin when it debuted in a jewelry a year later.

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And lastly in 1974, Savarite was another beauty that is launched into consumer awareness

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by Tiffany's only a few years after its geological discovery. It was also found in Tanzania and

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a part of Kenya. And the name that Tiffany's chose was for the Savo East National Park

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in the latter country. The gem is a very intense green, more often than emerald, yet with a

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high transparency like the Garnet family belongs to as far as gem type. In the last decade,

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Tiffany's pledged $1 million in wildlife anti-poaching and the reduction of ivory demands from African

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elephants by creating this fundraising brooch with this gem. Now Tiffany's has a long-standing

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commitment to conservation and ethical practices, which I'll cover later in the legacy section.

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Let's move on. I'm going to go over the top 10 culturally relevant items and replacements

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because I do love a good list. Number one, in 1862 Abraham Lincoln's seed pearl suite

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that he purchased for Mary Todd, this would mark Tiffany's as a favored go-to for politicians

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going forward. Number two, in 1878 Tiffany purchases an enormous raw yellow diamond and

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cuts it with 24 extra facets on the standard pattern yielding a 128 carat gem, which changes

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the culture of colored diamonds in America. Number three, in 1904 Tiffany's offers its

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solitaire a fabricated six-prong setting which gets new attention when Franklin Roosevelt

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purchases one for Eleanor. Number four, in 1961 the brand becomes both backdrop and in

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my opinion best supporting actor, along with Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's,

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a movie made from a short story by famed American author Truman Capote. Number five, in 1967

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Tiffany's wins the right to design the National Football League or NFL Super Bowl Trophy,

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a tradition that still stands. Number six, in 2013 the company has priceless product

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placement in Baz Luhrman's version of the great Gatsby film. The Savoy headpiece in diamond,

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pearl and ribbons would feature a detachable brooch and echo the high art of the times

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in which the story was written and lean into a little bit of art deco. Number seven, in

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2017 Tiffany partners with Lady Gaga to launch the hardware collection. Number eight, was

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it foreshadowing? Lady Gaga would wear the yellow diamond to the 2019 Oscars where she

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won. In 2021 musician couple Jay-Z and Beyonce star in the About Love campaign as the modern

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black spokespeople and with her being the first woman of color to model the diamond.

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This would open the discussion if the gems original sourcing and timeline made it a possible

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blood diamond. Number 10, in 2024 post LVMH acquisition of Tiffany's, Pharrell pushes

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the edge of urban and alternative metals and this marks the first African-American creative

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collaboration for the company. Speaking of collaborations, Tiffany's well aware that

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staying fresh and creating limited editions to raise desire and urgency would go well

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beyond their product as they had done before with owning the blue book itself. The store

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windows by Jean Moore, the artistic director who began in 1955 was a major catalyst of

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window design as many theater vignettes. Not only did he use recognizable objects to capture

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the consumers attention and emotional connection, my personal favorite being the bird's nest

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with Robin's eggs, yes the same exact hue as the Tiffany's blue and delicately laying

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large jewel-tuned cocktail rings on them, but he would also expose the world to the

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modern visuals of artists like Rauschenberg's graphic art, Jasper John's post war expressionism,

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Alexander Ney's modern sculptures, and Andy Warhol's pop art. Now the top designers that

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Tiffany's would approach for jewelry and product would be Jean Schlumberger in the

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1960s who began in fashion and left an iconic imprint as one who interpreted stately gems

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into whimsical and nature themed settings. Next would be Elsa Peretti in the 1970s who

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revolutionized organic, sensual, and sterling wearable art and minimalist home goods. In

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the 1980s Paloma Picasso, a jewelry graduate, would usher in graffiti inspired lines and

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bold semi-precious gem combinations. And lastly in the 2000s Frank Gary, an architect.

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Now the dark ages, first as early as 2004 and well into 2010, Tiffany's was suing eBay

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for selling counterfeit products which was diminishing the trademark and status of Tiffany's

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company. That their prestige and even the name was borrowed and abused to conduct business

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for profit. Well guess what, Tiffany's lost. Because the courts deemed that the term Tiffany's

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is now a vernacular definition and that eBay is a platform for peer-to-peer sales and never

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takes possessions of the items. And lastly, that eBay is a service, not a product. And

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this was a very sad day for copyright designs because Tiffany's lost not once, but twice

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given that their appeal was also ruled in favor of eBay. Secondly, in 2013, scandal arose

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when the vice president of product design was sentenced to 366 days in jail for theft

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of 2 million in over 160 pieces of Tiffany's product that she privately sold after stealing

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and some had even been transported across state lines. She had to repay 2.1 in product

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and then 2.2 million in restitution for the profit loss. This was a huge reveal of a blindspot

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in a company consistently known for its impeccability. Third, the hardware collection. This collection

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was a turning point and a bit of a dip where the brand reputation or celebrity ambassador,

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Lady Gaga, was greater than the caliber of the design or the prestige of its creator.

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Now Tiffany's wasn't afraid of modern edges or pushing the envelope, but post-recession

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and with most of department stores sinking quarter after quarter after quarter, this

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urban rebranding was a bit of a mess. And now it is our current decade, the acquisition

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adventure. Tiffany's had previously doubled down, it had successfully pivoted, now it

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was the grand exit. LVMH bought Tiffany's and in doing so brought its marketing into

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the social media which was new territory for our company. In return, Tiffany's netted

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LVMH an extra 6 billion in sales after partnering and modernizing visibility. Now European business

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still craves American competencies and culture and I predict always will. But this merger

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had Tiffany's modeling them into connecting with diversity and a range of age groups.

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While engagement strategy comes with risk and popularity is hard to predict or quantify,

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this turned out to be a reward for the risk of a power coupling into our American enterprise.

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And lastly, let's fast forward to legacy. Tiffany and company's charities have gone

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into youth education, the conservation has been on both land and sea around the world,

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and the commitment for continuing is the responsible mining fund and dedication to sustainability

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in its materials while protecting generations to come with its profits and its powers. For

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almost 200 years, Tiffany and company has been expressing and pioneering American style,

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business, sophistication and image while bringing tried and true tradition into our culture's

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past, present and future, infinitely echoing old and new.

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Thank you for listening and learning with me. I would love you to share this project

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with people finding rare beauty in today's world and throughout our times. Until the

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next episode, keep your own story sparkling.