Tiffany’s Landmark Opening Brings Glitz and BTS to New York
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If there were any remaining doubts that Tiffany & Co. has entered a new era, they were certainly dispelled Thursday night at the blowout opening for the jeweler’s renovated Fifth Avenue Landmark store.
The store, which had been under gut renovation for four years, drew A-list celebrities like BTS’ Jimin, Pharrell, Anya Taylor-Joy, Michael B. Jordan, Gabriele Union and Dwyane Wade, and Florence Pugh; a fleet of hobnobbing billionaires, such as Stephen Schwarzman and Leon Black, or mere multimillionaires like Larry Gagosian; five Arnaults (including the richest man in the room and world, luxury titan Bernard Arnault); LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton executives including Sidney Toledano and Michael Burke; hundreds of journalists that the brand flew in from overseas — plus thousands of fans outside that made Fifth Avenue look like a parade route.
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“I had to stop the car from three blocks away and walked here, it couldn’t make it through,” said Tiffany chief executive officer Anthony Ledru on the spectacle.
It was among the most extravagant fashion events New York has seen in recent memory. Tiffany welcomed guests into its Landmark and then built a tunnel on the sidewalk of 57th Street, where they were guided along to what had been the jeweler’s temporary flagship.
Except the “Flagship Next Door” was cleared out and refurnished especially for the evening — with feathered chandeliers, a Petrossian caviar bar, Dom Perignon Champagne, small porcelain dishes of sous vide chicken with elderflower garnishes on top and where the smell of truffle generally lingered in the air.
The scene was a study in the old and new guard. It was hard to make out how the tried-and-true Tiffany high jewelry collectors felt amid the stream of pulsating nightclub music from DJ Mark Ronson. One woman seemed to strike the right balance: she sashayed through Landmark’s revolving doors with a Schlumberger diamond wreath around her neck and a fuchsia vape in her mouth.
Partygoers got a first glimpse of the Tiffany Landmark’s uniforms that are specially made by Givenchy. The mock turtlenecks with embroidered Tiffany insignias and double-breasted, ’60s-style jackets are meant to represent “our love story with Audrey [Hepburn], our love story with Hubert de Givenchy — it’s a natural match,” said Ledru.
“I think this word gets overused a lot, but it’s just iconic — you think of New York, you think of Tiffany, you think of this building,” said Taylor-Joy, who was among the many Tiffany ambassadors on hand to dispense gushing praise on the building and event. She wore designs from Tiffany’s new Bird on a Rock high jewelry collection that launches along with Landmark and is among the first outings from artistic director Nathalie Verdeille.
Most celebrities in attendance had some type of Tiffany memory that they hold near and dear. “I have the Clinton pattern [of Tiffany flatware] and I actually served my dinner to President Clinton with the Clinton pattern silver — he had never heard of it,” said Martha Stewart.
Hailey Bieber, another Tiffany ambassador, showed up in a little snatched-waist Versace black dress in a TikTok-type ode to Hepburn. Her nails — long and ovular — were an iridescent shade of Tiffany Blue. “I’m calling them Tiffany glaze nails,” she said.
Tiffany seemed intent on the party reaching every sphere of online influence — they called on musicians, content creators and even online fitness gurus to attend and get the word out. Peloton master instructor Ally Love was among those viral names to seemingly pop out from most people’s screens and appear in the flesh — she showed up just before 9 p.m.
And that was around the time that fog started spreading across the event space’s stage — and out trotted a chorus line of eight Radio City Rockettes.
They were followed by a surprise performance from Katy Perry, who sang a full set. Before breaking into her 2008 hit “I Kissed a Girl,” she proclaimed, “I wasn’t supposed to sing this tonight, but it’s a special request from the Arnaults.” Bernard Arnault — along with his next-gen deputies Antoine, Alexandre, Frédéric and Jean — carefully watched from a balcony overhead.
Launch Gallery: Inside the Tiffany & Co. Landmark Store Grand Re-Opening
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