WALL STREET was alive with unintentional self-parody last week. A construction pit was yawning in front of the heart of American capitalism, the New York Stock Exchange, which has sunk to selling ad space on its own forehead: Its Corinthian pillars were obscured by a vinyl billboard for a the Holiday Inn (especially ironic since the sculpture on the pediment above the columns is loftily entitled “Integrity Protecting the Works of Man”).
Donna Alberico for The New York Times
Down the cobblestone alleys, amid stands selling $6 neckties and discount sunglasses in a greasy haze from bumper-to-bumper hot dog carts, I received a gift from the metaphor gods: A woman in her 80s wearing stretch-cotton leggings, running shoes, a baseball cap and an XL T-shirt with TIFFANY & CO. across the front.
Tiffany’s roots run deep in our nation’s history. Tiffany is as American as guns. Since opening in 1837, it has survived the Civil War, two World Wars, the Panic of 1893, the Great Depression, the psychedelic movement and 171 holiday seasons, supplying niceties from diamonds to cuspidors to dog whips. It designed a pitcher for the Lincoln inaugural, and made swords for the Civil War.
Tiffany introduced sterling silver to the United States. During the Gilded Age, Tiffany was beloved of European royalty, yet didn’t turn down a commission from Diamond Jim Brady to create a solid gold chamber pot with an eye at the bottom, to gaze upon the backside of the actress Lillian Russell.
In 1885, Tiffany designed the “E Pluribus Unum” insignia that still graces $1 bills. During the wars, Tiffany supplied surgical instruments and precision parts for guns and airplanes.
It has designed and produced the Super Bowl trophy since 1967 and the Nascar trophy since 2004.
Tiffany has always managed to navigate the dark spells of the economic cycle. “Aesthetics, if properly understood, will almost always increase sales,” said Walter Hoving, its chairman from 1955 to 1980, whose surefooted taste empowered the creativity of Jean Schlumberger and Elsa Peretti, even during the stagflation of the 1970s. “Design what you think is beautiful,” Hoving reportedly told his artists, “and don’t worry about selling it. That’s our job.”
The newer store opened on Wall Street in October 2007, barely a year before the biggest economic calamity since 1929, but seems prepared to ride out this mess, too, by adhering to Hoving’s advice … and employing a few tricks from P. T. Barnum, an old friend and collaborator in the late 1800s.
If the uptown Tiffany has not retained the glamour it enjoyed when that Audrey Hepburn movie came out in 1961, the Wall Street location is one of Manhattan’s most beautiful retail establishments. Its architects lovingly restored the historic details of the Beaux-Arts building, a former financial institution. To accommodate a retail area, they fit an angular modern interior inside the original walls, almost like a stage set, where it manages to look both discrete and harmonious: a 1960s, butch-romantic Burt Bacharach habitat of glass, wood and mirrors, under a canopy of curlicues set into the vaulted ceiling.
There are almost no salesclerks on the floor assisting flip-flop-clad tourists, who browse in a reverent hush with their Starbucks cups, viewing the place as a sort of wealth museum.
The first level showcases the greatest hits of perennial Tiffany collections: gloopy floating hearts by Elsa Peretti; bold, knobby shapes by Paloma Picasso. The starchitect Frank Gehry, a Tiffany designer since 2006, has a collection of postmodern baubles and bangles, most notably the Fish, a shape resembling a cubist zucchini, variously wrought in wood, silver, jade and onyx.
A number of items are devoted to infantilizing yesterday’s pampered wives: a spectrum of lucky charms (hearts, stars, moons, clovers, ladybugs, etc.) and tiny replicas of the turquoise Tiffany box itself, which, at least according to the store’s mythology, retains a Pavlovian effect on ladies.
I have always been mystified by Tiffany’s heart-shaped silver dog tags, worn on a choke chain, with the engraved instructions, “Please Return to Tiffany & Co.” This, I have always assumed, is precautionary: If your lady gets lost, someone will put her on a plane back to the jewelry store. In any case, they are hugely popular.
Tiffany has always offered a wide range of prices. Today the store has cases featuring “Items for under $750,” and the prices go down from there. For under $100, you can get a black plastic heart, printed in classic dog tag style, on a length of black cord.
A white marble and glass staircase swirls up to the mezzanine, that one may ascend closer to cherubim while viewing wedding bands and larger diamonds. A fetching young woman was beaming at one of the tables, sipping Veuve Clicquot.
“Are you getting your ring?” I asked.
“Yes!” she mock-whispered, wriggling with joy. “It’s all bought and everything! They’re just shining it up!”
Three young Chinese tourists were excitedly viewing a gold necklace with a small diamond at the center, for $900.
“Are you buying necklaces for your girlfriends?” I asked.
“He is,” said one with a backpack, pointing at his serious-looking friend.
“How did you know about Tiffany in China?” I asked the potential buyer. “Is it famous there?”
“I use the Internet,” he said, somewhat defensively.
“How did you know we are from China?” his friend asked.
The buyer became shy and hostile, and suddenly cupped his hands around the diamond he was viewing, so I couldn’t see it.
I hadn’t realized how intensely personal diamond buying is. It is a concentrated riot of vulnerable emotions, best articulated by the rowdy little diamonds themselves. There is something still stunningly romantic about it, despite the commercial hype that beats this idea into meaninglessness.
On the way out, I noticed that my newly bling’d bride-to-be had been wearing one of Tiffany’s silver dog tags around her neck. Marriages, like the strongest economies, may unexpectedly collapse. Should she run away, at least she is guaranteed to be returned to a place that clearly makes her happy.t
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