Monday

Jewelry Designer Spotlight: Mikimoto Pearls

Mikimoto Olive Earrings

Mikimoto Lace Earrings

In the mid nineteenth century, Japan became heavily involved in the natural pearl trade.  Natural pearls had been coveted for centuries by many cultures, but it wasn’t until this point when the demand for the naturally occurring gemstone began to far exceed the available supply.  It didn’t help that disastrous events such as red tides, a lowered water temperature, continual typhoons and over harvesting were greatly exacerbating the problem.  Kokichi Mikimoto, son of a Japanese noodle maker, was from a village that’s income relied on pearl harvesting.   He thought that pearls could possibly be manually created by seeding irritants into oysters so he stubbornly experimented and researched ways to implement his idea.   In 1893, he succeeded and created what may have been the first cultured pearl.  He was unaware that both biologist Tokichi Nishikawa and carpenter Tatsuhei Mise had each independently discovered that by placing an intrusion into an oyster, the oyster secreted nacre and thus, created a pearl.  Overtime, Mikimoto’s research evolved into creating giant pearls as well as black and silver lipped examples.  Today, the Mikimoto Company sets the standard for fine quality pearl jewelry.  In fact, Mikimoto’s criteria for quality is so high, only 5 percent of the harvest is deemed acceptable for their pearl jewelry.