Dive Brief:

• Manhattan's Trump Tower has seen a rash of protests, especially since the November election, and with president-elect Donald Trump stating he’ll be spending significant amounts of time at his home and office in the building, upscale jeweler Tiffany & Co. is taking steps to mitigate the impact of increased security on its nearby flagship store’s sales and traffic.

• Though its November holiday window display event was canceled due to security concerns, Tiffany has now put up NYPD barricades covered in monogrammed Tiffany-blue cloth to create a path for customers, Women’s Wear Daily reports.

• Tiffany has released a statement to news outlets saying it is in "frequent communication with the New York Police Department and U.S. Secret Service regarding safety and security along the perimeter of our Fifth Avenue flagship” and reiterated that information to WWD.

Dive Insight:

Tiffany & Co. is in the same building on Fifth Avenue in New York that Audrey Hepburn's Holly Golightly stalked in the opening credits of 1961's iconic “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” but the quiet early morning locale depicted in that film is a far cry from reality these days because of the store’s proximity to Trump Tower. 

Tiffany is working hard to make it easier for patrons to visit despite the Trump-induced security complexities. There are uniformed Tiffany bellhops along the new pathway, though a NYPD checkpoint subjects potential customers to scrutiny before they can go into the store.

Even before the Trump Tower troubles, Tiffany has been scrambling in recent quarters as tourist sales have dropped off thanks to the strong dollar (though that strength aided its success in Asia this quarter). The company has moved more assertively online, inking a deal with Net-A-Porter to reach millennials without resorting to price reductions.

Tiffany's third-quarter performance, which included its first sales increase in two years, was a good sign coming off a weak second quarter, but the retailer has farther to go, considering that its modest improvement is coming off easy-to-beat year-ago numbers, according to Neil Saunders, CEO of research agency and consulting firm Conlumino.

“In our view these are rather technical gains, and are not growth produced by a sound underlying strategy,” Saunders said in a November email to Retail Dive.

Luckily, Tiffany says its flagship contributes to just 10% of its sales, but the difficult access isn’t doing much for its brand.