Riffing with Reed Krakoff — Behind the Scenes with Tiffany & Co.’s Chief Artistic Officer

Each year, Tiffany & Co. debuts a High Jewelry collection highlighting magnificent design, stones and workmanship. This year’s offering, Extraordinary Tiffany, arrives November 13-15 at the Tiffany boutique at The Shops at Clearfork . The collection includes new designs by Tiffany & Co. chief artistic officer Reed Krakoff, along with a selection of French 20th-century designer Jean Schlumberger’s fantastical vintage creations for Tiffany.

Reed Krakoff takes us behind the scenes with his favorite Extraordinary Tiffany pieces and what influences his work.

The New Classic.
The High Jewelry collection Extraordinary Tiffany celebrates the very best in craftsmanship and design — which have both been at the core of our DNA for over 180 years. We’ve taken classic shapes and juxtaposed them alongside new cuts, and the result feels modern. One of my favorite pieces is the Tiffany Golden Star necklace. The design has a truly breathtaking 21-carat fancy intense yellow diamond that exemplifies our legacy in bringing the most brilliant gemstones to our clients. We’ve taken a classic design and given it a new point of view.

America the Beautiful.
Everything I design for Tiffany has an American point of view, where function and form are very much entwined. This has always fascinated me about American brands. At Tiffany, I create collections that are intended to be lived with, and I want clients to embrace beauty in their everyday lives. With American design, there’s a level of refined restraint — there aren’t a lot of extraneous details, and, because of this, you really need to pay close attention to the craftsmanship and the quality of the creation. How things are made really informs design. I grew up with the brand and have a deep respect and appreciation for what’s been built over these last hundred-plus years. There are no shortcuts. It’s incredibly rare to find that across product categories in other brands.

Fashion Influence.
I’m extremely fortunate to be able to bring different areas of the company together to tell our story in a unified way. So, if there’s a new collection, it may spark an idea for store interiors, which leads to marketing, which leads to events … It’s a different way of working in the jewelry business that is more typical of the fashion world. I’ve learned so much on this journey. Initially, there was a lot of excavating and discovery. I spent a lot of time digging into the brand’s history at the Tiffany archives, learning what has made Tiffany so successful for more than 182 years and what continues to make the brand unique today. Once I understood the heart of what has made Tiffany so incredibly successful, I was ready to write the next chapter.

Extraordinary Tiffany is on view November 13 to 15 at Tiffany & Co. in The Shops at Clearfork.