The Importance of Being Tiffany

By WALTER SHAPIRO

It is not every day that a man gets to jettison the ethical and aesthetic standards of a lifetime. Until now, the guiding principle of my journalistic career has been so rock-bottom firm, so bristling with integrity, that it could be etched on my tombstone: HE NEVER WROTE ABOUT DONALD TRUMP.

Like most moral strictures that are actually obeyed (the classic example: Do not worship a golden calf), this one never impinged on my life-style. It's not as if I toil for a New York City tabloid and have to beg some hard-boiled city editor, "Please, I'll do anything -- Madonna, Heidi Fleiss, even Shannen Doherty. Anything but the Trump beat."

But my high-minded aversion to shameless self-promoters vanished with the recent birth of that 7-lb. 7-oz. love child, Tiffany Ariana Trump. Make no mistake, this is not the beginning of a screed on Family Values left over from last year's Republican National Convention. The way I see it, the marital status of Donald Trump and Marla Maples is a private matter best left to their attorneys, their accountants and their spokesmen. Instead, what fascinated me was their decision to name this blue-eyed baby girl Tiffany.

Even as the lawyers fretted over the child's heir rights, the tabloid tom- toms spread the word that the infant's moniker was a belated art-of-the- deal tribute to real estate air rights. The eponymous Trump Tower was built in 1983 with the help of that patch of Manhattan sky owned by Tiffany & Co. How much more tasteful had the parents simply explained that Tiffany rhymes with epiphany.

The advertising world is in a swivet because familiar mass-market brand names such as Pampers and Marlboro are suddenly reeling from low-priced generic competitors. Tiny Tiffany Trump, in contrast, symbolizes the enduring cachet of a certain type of luxurious commercial pedigree. What could be more emblematic of this shopping-obsessed century than a fin-de-siecle vogue for naming children after favored stores? After all, the latest list of the most popular names for girls already veers toward the comically pretentious, with Nicole, Brittany and Ashley far outpacing plain Jane and simple Susan.

Picture a kindergarten of the future as the teacher calls the alphabetical roll: "Armani, Burberry, Cartier, Fendi, Gucci, Hermes . . ." all the way down to ". . . Valentino, Vuitton and Zabar." Instead of superhero lunch boxes, these kids will tote personalized shopping bags. And what about children cursed with parents whose taste in store names is simply too plebeian? On Geraldo, talk-show shrinks will discuss the trauma of low-rent names like Kmart Smith and Shoe-Town Jones.

Tiffany -- as I'm sure countless parents will argue -- is different. It sounds so mellifluous, so venerable, so upper-crust American. In the early 1960s, a pretty junior high classmate of mine served as a harbinger of the future by answering to Tiffany. Her we-should-have-seen-i t-coming destiny: a brief career as a braless starlet on a now forgotten TV sitcom.

To think that it all began with Charles Lewis Tiffany, who became famous in the 1850s by peddling Marie Antoinette's jewelry. (You can imagine the advertising slogan: "Her head went to the guillotine, but her diamonds are forever.")

But the true bard of bijou will always remain Truman Capote, who begat Holly Golightly (now that was a name) and her unorthodox notions of a morning repast.

The 1961 movie version of Breakfast at Tiffany's was a seminal part of my childhood too. Small wonder that as a married man, I have succumbed to the lure of shopping at Tiffany. I know the manly power that comes with presenting a birthday gift encased in that trademark robin's-egg-blue Tiffany box. The jewelry itself is almost beside the point; the symbolism is all in the blue box that proclaims, "I shop with the wealthy. I can afford to pay retail."

What trumpery. The issue is not the aesthetic merit of Tiffany jewelry but my parvenu pretensions in giving it. I was confronted with my folly a few years ago, while interviewing a marketing guru. "When you make a large purchase," he theorized, "there is a simple formula everyone follows -- risk reduction." His prime example, reading me perfectly, was the little blue Tiffany box, which he called "an expensive sign of riskless excellence."

At the end of our conversation, this veteran adman offered me a few words of friendly advice. "Forget Tiffany," he said. "Buy your wife her jewelry on 47th Street." He was referring to the world-famous diamond district, which is the epicenter of the wholesale jewelry trade. Now each year, on the eve of my wedding anniversary, I shop amid the tiny booths of 47th Street. I will admit that the whole experience still fills me with apprehension. Each time I contemplate a purchase, I can imagine the off-price jeweler later boasting, "You won't believe what I just sold to that bald guy with glasses."

How easy to flee back to Tiffany, that bastion of riskless excellence. But bravely I hold my ground on 47th Street, like a World War I doughboy dug in on the Marne, because I have finally absorbed an enduring life lesson: children play with the box; adults care about what's inside. So to Tiffany Ariana Trump, I wish a childhood filled with blue boxes with her first name on them. And if in later life she feels compelled to live up to her first name, may she skip the diamonds and instead open a homey little restaurant. Anyone for Breakfast at Tiffany's?