Pearly Blog / sustainable pearl farming

"Are you sure?”  This seemed crazy to me.  I searched Julien’s green eyes for any sign of him kidding around.  His sun blackened face was typically animated by a faint mischievous smile, infused with good nature but sometimes you wondered.  Julien was a Paumotu (person of the Tuamotu Archipelago) and one of the tiny handful of farmers who had started farming Tahitian pearls around the same time as our farm, circa 1990.

This post is a nod to one of my favorite types of Tahitian pearls: baroques.  

By definition a baroque pearl has one single trait that other pearl types (round, semi-round, semi-baroque and circled) share: no axis of symmetry.

These are some circled pearls.  The ones in the background are in an oyster shell.  Circled pearls have rings that pinch into the pearl and strongly affect (for the best) the color.  Circled pearls are often the most lively and have more character than other forms of pearl with the possible exception of the free form baroques.  

This is a photo I took on my last trip to the farm.  The shine on the buoy is from a full moon that came up a little before the sun went down over the land. 

Last weekend I joined friends in the pearl community for good times and pearl-related activities in LA.  The party was hosted by a good friend and retail pearl genius Jeremy Shepherd of Pearl Paradise.