Tiffany & Co. Is the Surprise Winner of April Fool’s Day

Say the word “Tiffany,” and it’ll no doubt instantly conjure up robin egg blue. The trademarked hue is as synonymous with the luxury jewelry company’s legacy as the image of a Givenchy-clad Audrey Hepburn window-shopping in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Indeed, it goes all the way back to its beginnings in the 1830s. (The multimillionaire Antoine Arnault even announced that LVMH had purchased the company for $16.2 billion by simply Instagramming a blue square.) The idea that Tiffany & Co. would willingly walk away from all that, then, just doesn’t make sense.

And yet, that’s exactly what the company seemed to do on Thursday, when it made a surprise announcement via Instagram. “Introducing our new House color,” read the caption that accompanied a photo of the classic Tiffany & Co. gift box. A simple hashtag summed up the new aesthetic: #TiffanyYellow. Think Big Bird, not a chic hue like chartreuse.

Tiffany & Co. tends to get a little over 100 comments per Instagram post. Their latest, on the other hand, has 10,500 and counting. The response was swift, and much of it along the lines of “I think this is a big marketing mistake.” But just as many were quick to point out a key detail: They made the announcement on Thursday—April Fool’s Day.