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Thirty-two thousand. That’s the number of clear glass cubes applied to the exterior of the new Tiffany & Co. flagship store in Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre.

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The effect, is mesmerizing.

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“You’re blind if you don’t see the facade,” jokes Anthony Ledru, president and CEO of Tiffany & Co., of the eye-catching storefront.

Appearing like a shimmering jewel, the facade is said to be inspired by diamonds in the rough — an obvious nod to a gemstone that holds great significance for the storied jewelry brand.

The expanded boutique takes over a space previously occupied by luxury footwear and accessories brand Jimmy Choo, which has relocated elsewhere inside Yorkdale. The American jewelry brand, which first entered the shopping centre with a store in 2009, took the former retail space and turned it into a “bespoke” masterpiece.

“Of course, it’s extraordinary jewelry. But it’s much more than that,” Ledru says. “You have archives, you have the craft of the jewelry, you have art. Big artists are here, Damien Hirst is a big one, Vik Muniz is another big one.”

Ringing in at 8,000 square feet, the sprawling boutique somehow still feels intimate, thanks to spaces dedicated to various specialties within the brand’s jewelry offering including its “Icons” such as Tiffany HardWear and Tiffany Lock, a high jewelry room dedicated to the creativity of artist Jean Schlumberger, and an engagement ring salon.

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The revamped Yorkdale location is also home to the only dedicated watch space for Tiffany & Co. in Canada, a product category that the company is leaning back in to after stepping away from it for awhile.

“What we wanted to bring back was really some of the original designs,” Ledru says. “The way we’re seeing watches is alignment with what we’re doing in jewelry. It’s not about elevation. It’s jewelry watches. All of them. Eternity watches linked to the Diamond Kings positioning, so every cut of the watch on every hour. HardWear, it’s a bracelet and a watch at the same time.”

Similar to the luxury positioning of its fine jewelry collection, the watches will carry a significant price tag, with the average price being $10,000, according to Ledru.

“We’re not going after the mass market. We’re not interested,” he says. “We want these to be fitting the jewelry, and the jewelry to be fitting the watches.”

Designed by renowned Tokyo-based architecture firm SANAA, the newly renovated Toronto boutique pulls inspiration from its so-called Landmark, the original flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York. Reopened in April 2023 after an extensive renovation, the N.Y. flagship space proved to be a big source of inspiration for the Yorkdale improvement and designation of the store as a Canadian flagship space.

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“Seeing what we have built at The Landmark, which we believe is a lot more than a jewelry store, we believe it’s a cultural hub. We wanted to bring part of it into Canada,” Ledru says. “We didn’t want to copy The Landmark, we wanted to adjust with some of the codes of Canada … ”

The sparkling new boutique will remain the crown jewel in the Canadian portfolio, he says.

” I don’t believe we will build, ever again, to that magnitude,” Ledru says.

With a history in Canada that spans more than three decades (the first Tiffany & Co. store opened on Bloor Street in Toronto in 1991), Ledru notes the company currently operates 10 stores across the country — “but maybe we have a little less in the future,” Ledru says — in key provinces: B.C., Ontario, Quebec and Alberta. Notably, the company carried a complete renovation of the Vancouver boutique on Burrard Street, revealing the new design in 2017.

Since the acquisition by LVMH for nearly US$16 billion in 2020, there’s been a shift in the Tiffany & Co. direction. And the archival work of Schlumberger plays a major role in that course.  

“Evolved and returned to what it used to be,” Ledru says of the outlook. “If you go back to the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, Tiffany is all about high jewelry, all about gold, all about diamonds.

“Schlumberger was the bulk of the business. Homeware was the bulk of the business. Diamonds were the bulk of the business. That’s what we’re going after.”

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The company is leaning in to the artist for its recent high jewelry collections, a theme that will continue with a collection launching next year. Tiffany & Co. also dedicated a major space within the Yorkdale boutique to the Schlumberger’s creation.

“He was a surreal icon-maker. You look at what he’s done, what he left to the company — 16 Stone (1959), Bird on a Rock (1965). Bird on a Rock, if I had to keep one piece on a desert island, I would take the Bird on a Rock,” Ledru says. “I’m obsessed with that bird, because I think it has everything to become a huge business that’s still super-exclusive. We made the pendant with new functionalities, there’s the flying bird versus just the bird on a rock, we did the bird on the pearl, the setting of the yellow diamond has changed.

“Business has been multiplied by almost 30 times in three years,” Ledru adds of the interest in the standout Schlumberger design. “And I believe it can still be multiplied by four or five. It could become one of the No. 1 icons. If not the No. 1, then No. 2.”

The emphasis of and investment in its expansive archives as inspiration, is a “retour aux sources,” or a return to its roots, for the 187-year-old company.

“Everything we’re doing today has to do with the past,” Ledru says. “Storytelling, that’s our ambition. That’s what we need to do at Tiffany, tell the story. This company is 200 years old — you’ve got to go back to the best stories.”

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