In 1837 Charles Lewis Tiffany, then just 25, and John B Young, opened a “stationery and fancy goods” store in New York with a $1,000 advance from Tiffany’s father.
By 1845 they had gained a reputation for fine jewellery using the best imported gemstones, and one of Tiffany’s genius ideas was to produce an annual Blue Book – a glittering catalogue of all the company had to offer.
By 1878, the same year that the company acquired one of the world’s largest yellow diamonds from the Kimberley diamond mines in South Africa, it began using what became known as Tiffany blue not just for the cover of its annual jewel catalogue, but also for the gift boxes its jewellery was wrapped in.
Sometimes called robin’s-egg blue or forget-me-not blue, it is however a distinctive colour of its own, cool and sophisticated, and now a symbol of luxury inextricably linked to the brand.
With outposts far from its New York base and a range of goods extending way beyond the initial jewelled offerings, the company in 2001 sought to standardise the shade to ensure no matter where in the world, no matter the medium the colour was reproduced in, it would be the same instantly recognisable shade.
It commissioned Pantone to create the perfect Tiffany blue – officially called “1837 Blue” to mark the year Tiffany was established.
