Once upon a time, Tiffany was the name of a person: Charles Lewis Tiffany, who, along with John B. Young, opened a “stationery and fancy goods store” on Broadway in 1837. Over the next 182 years, as the original store moved uptown to Fifth Avenue, and then expanded to over 300 locations, the name transformed into something else entirely: a symbol of striving aspiration, whether it be for love or a more lavish, gleaming life. The name Tiffany became an expression of the American promise of a better future — part of the national myth, captured in the plushy environs of a little blue box.

It has touched everything from the White House to the Super Bowl to the $1 bill, to literature, film and television. No wonder LVMH thought it would be a jewel in its crown. When the French conglomerate reached a deal to buy the company this week for $16.2 billion, in the largest deal ever in luxury, it didn’t just buy an American jeweler. It bought a part of the culture. Just consider the history.