When it comes to jewelry, Vancouver has joined the ranks of New York City, London, Paris, Hong Kong, San Francisco, and Toronto. Van City officially has its very own Tiffany & Co. store. The renowned retailer of fine goods packaged in baby-blue boxes with a silky white ribbon, has opened a new 4,700-square-foot Vancouver location at Burrard and Alberni. The location offers jewelry, timepieces, sterling silverware, china, crystal, stationery, fragrances, and specialty gifts in the downtown location.

The firm has long maintained that they don’t consider thresholds as per capita income when determining where it will locate new stores; instead, Tiffany's looks at existing sales from an area when considering a new location. To gauge, the company tracks how much they are already selling to residents of an area through the Internet. This technique has lead to Tiffany & Co. operating approximately 100 stores in the United States. Now all those wealthy and internet savvy Vancouverites will have to get off their computers and head to the new downtown location to get a Tiffany's fix.

The company was founded by Charles Lewis Tiffany and John B. Young in 1837 as Tiffany & Young, before changing its name to Tiffany & Co. in 1853. Tiffany & Co. is based in New York City. Tiffany's Fifth Avenue location in NYC will continue to be the company's flagship store.

By enticing Tiffany's to join the city, Vancouver now appears even more attractive to the world’s top retailers, including brands like Gucci, Lacoste, Betsey Johnson and Wolford. It looks like those special romantic gifts to your girlfriend just got dramatically more expensive. But, who knows? Maybe you'll meet a window-shopping Audrey Hepburn lookalike while you're there. Well, probably not. But you are guaranteed to find a cougar or two.