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https://www.barrons.com/articles/go-for-baroque-pearls-are-having-a-fashion-moment-01646161973
Perhaps no one popularized pearls as much as Coco Chanel. In 1935, Man Ray photographed the fashion icon dressed in black, smoking a cigarette, wearing her trademark multiple strands of pearls and Verdura cuff bracelets. “A woman needs ropes and ropes of pearls,” she once said.
Glamorous 20th-century fashion influencers took note. For decades, pearls graced the necks of style luminaries, including Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and Princess Diana. Classic white strands of round Akoya pearls became jewelry-wardrobe staples among the ladies-who-lunch crowd and treasured heirlooms for their descendants.
While pearls attained classic status many decades ago, they have also been having a fashion moment recently.
“For the last three years, the runways have been filled with pearls,” says Peggy Grosz, senior vice president at Assael, a New York–based pearl specialist.
Indeed, Chanel’s Spring 2022 collection featured its founder’s trademark costume pearls on long chains draped around necks and hips. From fashion runways to red carpets to Instagram feeds, pearls have been capturing the jewelry zeitgeist, spotted on both female and male celebrities.
Pearls are the only gems that are produced by an animal. Cultivators mimic the way natural, uncultured pearls are created by implanting a beadlike nucleus from a mollusk shell into an oyster, and the animal responds to the irritant by coating it with a pearlescent nacre of calcium carbonate, layer by layer, multiple times per day.
Cultivating high-quality pearls isn’t for the impatient. It takes years to build up a sizable pearl with thick, radiant nacre. The final results aren’t known until the oyster is harvested, and the pearl is extracted in all its natural glory. Unlike other gems, cutting and polishing aren’t required—just a buff with a cloth to heighten the pearl’s natural luster.
This inherently organic aspect of pearls might be a factor in their rising popularity in these environmentally sensitive times. Pearl quality is affected by water temperature and purity, making them vulnerable to climate change and warming sea temperatures.
In the gem-quality pearl realm, Ms. Grosz says round Akoya cultured pearls, which form in the Pinctada Fucata oysters that thrive in the cold saltwater bays off the coast of Japan, have been increasing in sales for the last few years, while South Sea and Tahitian pearls have also seen a surge in demand. Meanwhile, among the trendy Instagram crowd, affordable freshwater baroque pearls lend a fun and funky look at a lower price point for a younger generation.
Round Akoya and South Sea pearls are seeing the highest demand in the luxury market, but exceptional baroque pearls present an unconventional alternative to those who don’t like to follow the crowd. Baroques form in irregular one-of-a-kind shapes, making each as unique as a snowflake, with its own distinct contours and luminosity.
Originally, baroque pearls were the result of a happy accident that occurred when the nucleus slipped out of the sac where it was implanted, causing the oyster to produce an irregularly shaped pearl instead of the intended spherical pearl. What were once byproducts can now be intentionally cultivated. “With today’s technology, they know where to place the nucleus to create a baroque pearl,” says Sonny Sethi, CEO of Tara Pearls in New York.
Dubbed the Queen of Gems, radiant pearls have been prized for thousands of years. Baroque varieties add a contemporary twist to the tried and true, making a singular statement that, by its nature, cannot be matched.
Designer Mish Tworkowski celebrated his new Palm Beach flagship boutique with the launch of the Why Knot? collection that playfully interprets knotted ropes in versatile, easy-to-wear pieces that transition from day to evening. He got the idea from a sea-beaten knotted rope he discovered while walking the beach on Mustique.
One delicate pearl and lapis lazuli lariat consists of a nearly 60-inch-long strand of silvery baroque Tahitian keshi pearls sprinkled with round lapis beads. The ends are fitted with sculpted gold-rope tassels. This versatile piece can shape-shift as a triple-strand choker, worn long and looped like a scarf, or alluringly draped down the back.
Mikimoto’s Baroque Cultured Pearl and Diamond Necklace ($212,000) combines a strand of luminous
17.1 millimeter x 15.4mm white South Sea cultured pearls, with a jeweled floral spray in 18-karat white gold, set with 10.21 carats of diamonds cascading from the neck.
This unique, red-carpet-worthy necklace was created by the famous Japanese pearl brand whose namesake, Kokichi Mikimoto, discovered the process for cultivating pearls in 1893, making it possible for the world to wear and appreciate pearls more widely.
Assael’s “Pearl on a Platter” ring ($34,100) places a single large cultured baroque South Sea pearl, measuring 24.0mm x 22.8mm x 20.4mm, at the center of a contemporary platform of 18-karat white gold encircled by a shimmering halo of round brilliant-cut diamonds. Bon appetit!
From Wempe Jewelers in New York, two baroque cultured South Sea pearls measuring 17.5mm x 17.5mm dangle from white-gold earrings set with 146 brilliant-cut diamonds totaling almost two carats. This unique pair (price upon request), from the Opulence by Wempe Statements collection, is the perfect expression of classic with a twist.
This article appeared in Mansion Global Experience Luxury.
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