LVMH unveils Tiffany’s renovated Fifth Avenue flagship
What: Tiffany & Co. is reopening the doors to its most famous location, now called the Landmark, revealing a major facelift and the first full view of LVMH’s vision for the brand.
Why it is important: The Landmark is one of the largest single-brand luxury stores in the world across accessories, apparel, and jewelry and LVMH’s most expensive single-brand real estate investment ever made by LVMH.
Spanning 110,000 square feet, the store is not only the largest jewelry store, but is also a cultural destination. Prior to its renovation, the Fifth Avenue store was New York City’s fifth-largest tourist attraction and was at one point the world’s top-grossing single-brand luxury store.
While the brand has declined to reveal how much they spent on the store, it’s estimated to be well into the nine-figure range. The store is expected to receive more than 2 million visitors annually.
LVMH started with a clean state as the store had already been empty for two years, leaving the architect, Marino, with the opportunity to change everything. Inspired by the frivolity of the jewelry world and how it was portrayed in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, he wanted to create a bright new world, remove the intimidating factor, and make the experience of buying jewelry fun and cheerful.
Previously having an Old New York feel, the store is now more representative of today’s world, with gold, glitz and pinkish baselines giving a more homey and warm feel. With eight floors, a spiral staircase helps create consistency and carry shoppers throughout the store with mirrored walls along the way.
The first floor has been labeled “The World of Tiffany” featuring floor to ceiling archways filled with CGI footage of Manhattan instead of windows, mega diamonds on display, and an assortment of jewelry from the brand’s most popular collections.
On the third level, visitors can find the love and engagement floor, which features a central corridor of case lines in rose gold and copper tones. Private shopping rooms can also be found in this department with mirrors covering the walls and ceilings. Taking inspiration from Warhol, the ceiling has aluminum foil glued to it, which Marino said felt like a very Audrey Hepburn thing to do.
Many of the elements of the Landmark were designed to be interactive to attract and capture the new generation of shoppers. On the fifth floor, shoppers can find “The Audrey Experience” which offers an immersive experience into “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”
The store also features a breakout room for Elsa Peretti jewelry and a stand-alone salon for Paloma Picasso on the fourth floor, emphasizing Tiffany’s history of working with global artists.
Guests can enjoy a new iteration of the Tiffany Blue Box Café and the “Diamond on the Roof” three-story addition that will serve as the center for brand history activations. The eighth and ninth floors of the building will be used as special exhibition space.
The store arrives at a pivotal time as jewelry and specifically high jewelry are experiencing the highest relevancy in nearly two centuries. It is also expected to bring even more success to Tiffany’s as the company’s high jewelry sales doubled last year.
