Tiffany & Co. chief executive sees opportunity in Australia, high jewellery

The blue chip jeweller’s top boss on expanding its retail network, jewellery as culture and resilience of the hard luxury category.

The interior of the new Tiffany & Co. boutique in Brisbane.

In terms of famous stores, Tiffany & Co.’s New York flagship is unsurpassed. A Givenchy-clad Audrey Hepburn as ultimate party girl Holly Golightly nibbling a croissant in Truman Capote’s seminal Breakfast at Tiffany’s ensured it so. The recent expansive renovation of the boutique, now called The Landmark, set in motion a new retail strategy and experience that is making its way to Australia with the opening of the new Brisbane boutique in Queens Plaza.

It will be the ninth boutique in Australia following the brand’s entrance into Australia in 1994.

“The Brisbane boutique is a cultural destination embodying the same sense of wonder and sophistication as The Landmark in New York City,” says Anthony Ledru, chief executive and chairman of Tiffany & Co.

Like the New York flagship, the new Brisbane store features the work of the noted architects Peter Marino and Hugh Dutton, who created the boutique’s exterior facade, and a celebration of two of the jewellers most iconic designers, and eternal muses, Jean Schlumberger and Elsa Peretti.

“Jean Schlumberger was one of the 20th centuries most gifted artists and today his icons continue to be an indication of unimpeachable taste reflecting both the artist’s ingenuity and the technical virtuosity of Tiffany’s expert craftsmanship,” says Ledru of the French designer’s continued influence.

“Elsa Peretti was a true pioneer of design. Few designs maintain their style and beauty for decades, but Peretti’s organic jewelry is as modern today as ever.”

Tiffany & Co. chief executive Anthony Ledru.

The Brisbane boutique is also equipped with private salons, one of them inspired by the design of The Landmark, which can host appointments for the high jewellery client who is becoming incredibly important in the world of jewellery.

“We are excited to be able to bring this experience to our Australian clients,” says Ledru.

“We are investing in new stores and renovations globally and our biggest priority is to give our clients the opportunity to physically connect with our product and experience our brand in an emotionally engaging way.”

Since Ledru joined Tiffany & Co. in 2021 he has led an overhaul of the American blue chip jeweller. Beyond the store renovations this has included collaborations with the likes of Nike, hiring Beyonce as an ambassador and refocusing on the rarefied- and increasingly lucrative – world of high jewellery. Its most recent high jewellery collection (or Blue Book as the jeweller calls them) called Out of the Blue used only exceptional, untreated gemstones. This is another of Ledru’s pushes.

As Tiffany & Co. chief gemmologist Victoria Reynolds, who started working for Tiffany & Co. in 1987, told WISH magazine in November last year, she “auditions’” every stone used in the jeweller’s Blue Box collections. The edict of no longer using ‘treated’ or heated stones (to enhance a stone’s beauty) was an initial challenge.

“Anthony Ledru, our chairman, felt very strongly about this when he came in, and it was one of the first challenges he gave me. He said ‘I want to do unheated rubies and sapphires, no oil emeralds.’ And I went home and I was like ‘Dear Lord, how am I going to do this?’ And yet we did do it, and we continue to do it for every Blue Book. I think it’s our way of really using only the finest of what Mother Nature gives you and really presenting it in a way that’s extraordinary,” Reynolds said in the interview.

The push is working.

Inside the new Tiffany & Co. boutique in Brisbane.

LVMH (which purchased Tiffany & Co. in 2021) doesn’t break down the earnings for its brands, but it did call out Tiffany & Co. (along with Bulgari and Tag Heuer) in its revenue report for 2023. Overall revenue from the watches & jewellery division at LVMH grew 7 per cent in 2023.

As noted in a recent Case Study in industry publication The Business of Fashion, amid inflation, the cost of living and various other ills that tend to curb discretionary spending, brands are increasingly targeting the one per cent customer. The ones not caught up in the luxury slowdown post the highs of the great Covid YOLO (you only live once).

The case study pointed out that ‘In 2022, the top 2 per cent of luxury customers drove 40 per cent of overall sales, according to Bain. The market share driven by VICs increased further in 2023, the consultancy estimates, with growth spurred by increased sales of higher-ticket items and price hikes rather than greater overall volumes, indicating that demand for product categories at the top of the luxury pyramid boomed.”

Ledru agrees there is great demand, and opportunity, in this uniquely resilient category of luxury.

“We have had a solid year with our high jewellery business. With the recent acquisition of Platinum Invest, which owns the largest high jewellery workshops in Paris, we will strengthen our manufacturing capabilities for fine and high jewellery and boost inventory globally. There is enormous potential for the hard goods luxury market, and we are optimistic about the future,” he says.

Like other luxury brands, Tiffany & Co. is also wooing this client with special experiences.

“High Jewellery is a very important part of who we are as a brand, and the ultimate expression of Tiffany. A key to our global High Jewellery success has been the elevation of client experiences and extraordinary events. Clients have been invited to unique destinations to experience bespoke curations of High Jewellery collections featuring the most extraordinary diamonds and coloured gemstones alongside never-before seen masterpieces,” he says.

Tiffany & Co. is not the only top tier international jewellery brand expanding its presence in Australia – and beyond the luxury mainstay precincts of Melbourne and Sydney too. Late last year storied French jeweller Van Cleef & Arpels opened a boutique in Perth, while Roman jeweller Bulgari joined Tiffany & Co. in opening a boutique in Brisbane’s Queens Plaza. The Hour Glass specialty watch group is opening in Adelaide Central Plaza and Australian pearling business Paspaley is also opening at the MacArthur Central Shopping Centre in Brisbane. There is a strong appetite for travelling high jewellery collections in Australia too – in February Cartier flew in international press and clients for an exceptional high jewellery exhibition and gala, Gucci will showcase pieces from its Allegoria collection in the Sydney Westfield flagship until next Monday, and Chanel later in the year.

In an interview at LVMH Watch Week in Miami Jean-Christoph Babin, chief executive of Bulgari, described what he calls a ‘double phenomenon’ when it comes to Australia’s evolution in the hard luxury space. “Australia is becoming more and more competitive, first because there are more brands joining it. And in the brands already there, there are more store openings. So you have, I would say a densification of luxury in Australia and not only into the historical Sydney and Melbourne, but also on Brisbane and all the Gold Coast, thinking about Adelaide and Perth. So you have really currently in Australia a strong boom of the distribution networks and more brands also joining.

“It‘s very interesting case because it’s on the one hand a metro market. So it’s pretty usual in the metro market … but probably all brands are betting of more demographics coming. We know that already historically [there are] a lot of Chinese established residents in Australia and also New Zealand. And we believe that post Covid, this probably will further accelerate,” he says.

“At the same time, Australians are getting more and more used to top luxury and are buying more into it. So you have a double kind of phenomenon, which is driving luxury brands to invest more in Australia than they used to do maybe 10 years ago.”