The Magical Windows of Tiffany
Tiffany & Co. founder Charles Lewis Tiffany was born to dream. Long before his time, he understood the universal desire to dream about something bigger than one’s self, and from the very first store in New York City in 1837, fantastical window displays became a proud tradition of the House.
Photograph by Ricky Zehavi
“When someone looks into a Tiffany window, I want them to do a double—even a triple—take.”
—Gene Moore
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
The enduring allure of Tiffany windows is captured in the iconic film Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The lead character, played by Audrey Hepburn®, is drawn to the window display at the Tiffany flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York. “…The only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany’s. It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there,” she says.
Audrey Hepburn®—Trademark and Likeness property of Sean Hepburn Ferrer and Luca Dotti—All Rights Reserved.
Art for All
Tiffany’s windows have always acted as public galleries. Accessible to all who walked past, they entertained, surprised and created desire.
When Gene Moore joined the company in 1955, he defined window display as we know it today. Renowned for his radical, witty and topical designs, Moore’s pioneering windows were in touch with the times and occasionally outrageous, using jewelry and diamonds to tell a story worth stopping for.
Mixing the extraordinary with the ordinary, he placed legendary Tiffany jewelry with unexpected, everyday materials like household string, popcorn and even a toy dump truck. In one notable display, the “worm” that a bird tugged from a pile of dirt was, in reality, a sparkling necklace. He enlisted soon-to-be celebrated artists including Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns to create windows with him, and during his 39 years at the company, designed more than 5,000 window displays.
Photograph by Ricky Zehavi
A Tradition Continues
Today, art, sculpture, lighting and set design continue to come together in Tiffany windows across the world, creating moments of pure fantasy remembered by all who stroll by.
The store’s glamorous holiday windows, unveiled each November, capture the magic of the season and have become a New York City tradition, drawing thousands of visitors each year.
In 2018, Tiffany’s world-famous windows were featured in a book published by Assouline, Windows at Tiffany & Co., which showcased the artistry of the House’s imaginative displays.
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