The Tiffany Lock Collection Gives Functional Hardware a Glamorous Upgrade

Whereas Tiffany has lengthy been linked to a glamorous sense of nostalgia—specifically, to a sure gamine immortalized in a e book and film bearing the corporate title within the title, and to its legendary late designers Jean Schlumberger and Elsa Peretti—its choices have all the time been creative and consistent with the occasions. Amongst Tiffany’s developments are the invention and introduction to the jewellery world of gems together with kunzite, tanzanite, tsavorite, and morganite (named after common buyer and collector J.P. Morgan), and the creation of ingenious hybrid designs which might be bought as one piece and could be reworked in a number of methods.

Debuting globally in September, Tiffany Lock, a set of 4 all-gender bracelets, re-envisions the padlock, an oft-riffed motif from the Tiffany archives, and transforms it right into a gleaming image of inclusivity. The bracelets, out there in 18-karat yellow, rose, and white gold, with or with out diamonds, function an modern clasp that mimics the swiveling mechanism of a purposeful padlock. “No guidelines. All welcome” is the openhearted tagline of the promoting marketing campaign, which stars Imaan Hammam, the Dutch mannequin of Moroccan and Egyptian descent, and Tyshawn Jones, the American professional skateboarder.

Padlocks have been utilized in jewellery for the reason that Regency period, after they appeared as charms on ladies’s necklaces, pendants, and bracelets, and on the extravagant collars, lots of them engraved, of the canine of noblemen. “I’m his highness’s canine at Kew; Pray inform me, sir, whose canine are you?” reads an epigram that the poet Alexander Pope had engraved on the lock of certainly one of his pampered pooches. The pattern took off once more throughout the fin-de-siècle reign of Queen Victoria, when dainty padlocks had been worn on the pendants of 1’s supposed; some variations got here with a key and had been gifted by gents after they went away for prolonged intervals of time. (Not all such historic trinkets had been fairly as romantic: Padlocks, in fact, had been a vital part of the merciless chastity belts used from the fifteenth by 18th centuries.) To this present day, there are bridges in Europe the place lovers affix padlocks with their initials onto the railings and throw the keys into the water beneath as an emblem of their love.

In excessive vogue, padlocks have been integrated into the collections of many main designers, from Elsa Schiaparelli and Franco Moschino to Alexander McQueen and Schiaparelli’s present successor, the media darling Daniel Roseberry. Away from the exalted runways, regardless of or due to their affiliation with restraint, they’ve been a go-to for trendy provocateurs for the reason that punks of the late Nineteen Seventies and ’80s wore them on bike chains and canine collars.

However the roots of Tiffany’s lock designs—together with a limited-edition model by artist Daniel Arsham, out there subsequent 12 months—are nearer to dwelling. Since its inception, in 1837, the corporate has bought padlocks as a part of its objects and homeware assortment. Beginning within the Fifties, Tiffany introduced the purposeful {hardware} into the world of private adornment, as key rings, brooches, and necklaces. Even the gender-inclusive method to advertising and marketing is within the firm DNA. In a ’50s commercial for “helpful and distinctive” presents, the accompanying copy takes nice pains to level out that this stuff, together with a sublime 14-karat-gold padlock cash clip, are “completely suited to masculine style.” If that intuition proves proper, the all-embracing enchantment of its new Lock will achieve widening Tiffany’s circle of loyalists.

© Courtesy of Property of Shirley Baker/Mary Evans Image Library; Chesnot/Getty; Courtesy of Tiffany: Tiffany Archives; Courtesy of Landemuseum, Germany.