For most of its history Tiffany has refused to sell any men's diamond rings, including engagement rings—it considered them to be in bad taste. The firm introduced diamond engagement rings for women in 1886.
Walter Hoving, who ruled Lord and Taylor, and then Tiffany for 25 years, firmly enforced the policy.
Once, a customer tried to buy a man's diamond ring from Hoving himself, whose flat refusal was: "What you want is your business. What we sell is our business."
(Hoving wouldn't sell silver plate or provide charge accounts to customers who had been rude to his employees, either)
He explained his stance to told Women's Wear Daily.
"Sometimes you mustn't pay too much attention to your customers. That's the best way to mess up your merchandise.He meant it, and no one, not even President Kennedy, got a pass.
In 1962, Kennedy, a fanboy of all things space age, directed Tiffany to supply 32 acrylic calendar mementos for those who had been close to him during the Cuban missile crisis—mementos made of then-new Lucite (Poly(methyl 2-methylpropenoate)).
What the Leader of The Free World received instead of the goods was a terse letter from the Chairman of Tiffany informing him that his firm did not execute objets d'art in plastic.
Kennedy change the order to silver.
Even in 2015, when Tiffany ran its first ad for rings for gay male couples, they couldn't have anything heteros couldn't have — just gemless bands.
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| 2015 Tiffany print ad for gemless rings for male couples |
But last January Tiffany's sale to French-owned LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE (which also owns Bulgari, Christian Dior, Givenchy, etc.) was completed, and three months later, diamond engagement rings for boys went on sale—for $15,600 to $278,500, each.
And no BOGO, homo. (Sorry, we couldn't resist.)
