Tiffany Co hoping sales will sparkle at new outlet

BLUE BOXES will be this season's gift of choice among marriage-keen, diamond-friendly girls for whom there is little more dispiriting than a naked finger at Christmas time.

With its trademark packaging in tow, Tiffany Co opens its first Irish store in Dublin in a fortnight, just in time for the traditional rush of festive retail romance - and just in time for the downturn in consumer spending. "We expect to sell quite a few engagement rings between now and Christmas," said Tiffany president Jim Quinn, in Dublin yesterday to receive an honorary doctorate from UCD.

Recessionistas, avert your eyes: the iconic New York jewellery company will take up residency on the refurbished ground floor of Brown Thomas on Grafton Street, stocking its counters with glittering baubles courtesy of Elsa Peretti, Paloma Picasso and Frank Gehry, among others.

Mr Quinn, a New Yorker whose grandparents were born in Ireland, knows from the number of Irish-accented "dollar tourists" who have graced the company's Fifth Avenue flagship store that Tiffany has "great brand awareness" here. It had been scouting for locations "largely on Grafton Street" for a few years before fixing on Brown Thomas.

The weak economy won't dull its sparkling sales too much, Mr Quinn believes. Tiffany's global sales increased from $1.9 billion (€1.5 billion) to $2.9 billion in 2007 and so far in 2008 the luxury brand has not been squeezed as much as mid-market jewellers.

"We do expect that our business will slow down in the fourth quarter. Certainly, the economic conditions are a whole lot less celebratory," said Mr Quinn.

But with half of the firm's operating profits now coming from outside the US, the "rocky road" could be smoothed out by buoyant Asian sales, while the recent opening of its sixth London store at the new Westfield shopping behemoth - another retail launch noted for its incongruous timing - has attracted "terrific traffic".

The 170-year-old company, immortalised in the 196l film Breakfast at Tiffany's, has survived a few recessions and depressions in its time. "While demand might soften up over the next period of time, it's an opportunity for us to gain market share," said Mr Quinn.

And while a younger generation may not remember Audrey Hepburn declaring Tiffany's to be "the best place in the world, where nothing bad can take place", the store has attracted a new generation of fictional devotees from Charlotte in Sex and the Cityto Gossip Girl's Blair Waldorf, all of them searching for old-fashioned romance at a price tag that would make most people blush.