Tagged with 'Akoya pearls'

The highest value necklaces will consist of gem quality pearls that have a uniformity throughout the whole necklace. The harmony of a contemporary pearl necklace made of dark grey Tahitian pearls, for example, will be much enhanced if the lustre, colour and size of the pearls are considered.

Matching is also important with other types of jewellery such as pearl earrings. Small variations of colour in two golden South Sea pearls could create balance or a distracting imbalance in the overall look of the jewellery.

In order to match pearls, sometimes tens of thousands of loose pearls will need to be sorted. If the pearls are rare, or if a necklace requires many pearls, this puzzle becomes increasingly difficult. For this reason, it is no surprise that excellent matching of pearl jewellery, especially for rare luxury pearls, requires patience, a large inventory and skill.

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA), which led the way in establishing a classification system for diamonds, defines Matching as one of seven key criteria for grading the quality of pearl jewellery. According to this leading gemological institution, pearls are graded according to size, shape, color, luster, surface quality, nacre quality and finally matching.

To classify how well pearls are matched, an expert will assess the consistency of each GIA grading factor across each and every pearl before grading the Matching of the jewellery as:

1. Excellent – Pearls are uniform in appearance and drilled on-centre


2. Very Good – Pearls have very minor variations in uniformity


3. Good – Pearls have minor variations in uniformity


4. Fair – Pearls have noticeable variations in uniformity


5. Poor – Pearls have very noticeable variations in uniformity


6. N/A – Jewellery has a single pearl

As well as having many years of experience with pearls, the team at Winterson is trained in pearl grading by the GIA. Matching is one of the value factors that describes the pearl jewellery at Winterson. If you would like to know more about the quality of our pearls, or how we grade them, please do contact us.

Here is a simple question. How many freshwater pearls are there in this image ?

Pearls have fascinated us for hundreds of years with their colours, shapes and diversity. Despite our long love story with pearls, our general knowledge of these pretty and precious gems is still relatively poor. A simple test of our understanding is whether we can explain the difference between a freshwater and a saltwater pearl…

Saltwater pearls include Akoya pearls historically from Japan, Tahitian pearls from French Polynesia and South Sea pearls from Australia and Indonesia, whilst Freshwater pearls today originate mainly from China. The difference between saltwater and freshwater pearls is not their geographic origin, however, but in the mollusks in which they originate.

Saltwater pearls are found in oysters that live in saltwater oceans and seas, whilst freshwater pearls are found in mussels that live in freshwater rivers, lakes and ponds.

Both saltwater and freshwater pearls are formed with a similar process. All pearls are formed as the mollusk secretes layers of a protective iridescent substance called nacre around an irritant. In natural pearls an irritant such as a parasite enters the mollusk, whereas with cultured pearls, this irritant is introduced intentionally by man. Experts define both saltwater and freshwater pearls as ‘pearls’ for they have concentric layers of nacre.

Both freshwater and saltwater pearls make beautiful jewellery. Their unique characteristics of each variety make it not too difficult to distinguish a freshwater pearl from a saltwater pearl by looking at its natural colour, its shape, its size and whether the pearl has a bead nucleus inside. Metallic pastel colours, for example, are a clear sign that a pearl is of freshwater origin. A knowledgeable eye might look at the drill hole of the pearl to determine if there is a shell bead nucleus inside.

Continual advances in pearl farming techniques, for example with the introduction of round beaded nuclei to help make larger round freshwater pearls, are making some of these differences harder to identify. With some significant differences in price between freshwater and saltwater pearls, it is always advisable to purchase pearls from a reputable jeweller.

PS The answer above is that there are 5 cultured freshwater pearls in the image above, the rest are all cultured saltwater pearls.

Winterson, the online luxury brand specialising in pearl jewellery, and Sophie Breitmeyer, the award-winning young British jewellery designer, announce the launch of a colourful new collection of contemporary pearl earrings and pendants for 2011/12. The unique collection brings together two key trends with the combination of vibrant block gemstone colours and classic pearls.

Sophie Breitmeyer, a graduate of Central St Martins, was recently described by Vogue Italia as "a new talent to watch" and was previously a winner of the Bright Young Gems award in 2010. Since graduating, she has developed a strong following for her creative approach to design and her combinations of unusual stones and different coloured golds. Sophie recently collaborated on a catwalk collection with design duo Fyodor Golan, winners of the Fashion Fringe award at London Fashion Week this September, and has worked with Amber Le Bon on her collections.

The collection for Winterson is designed to be highly wearable for the daytime and for the evening. Three new jewellery designs for a pearl stud earring, a pearl drop earring and a pearl pendant combine colourful circles of gemstones such as pink rubies, blue sapphires and green tsavorite garnets to create nine individual pieces.

At the centre of each design is a classic Akoya Pearl, a white saltwater pearl that was one of the very first pearls to be cultured in Japan and is widely admired for its quality and lustre. The pearls are hand selected by Winterson for this collection, which is finished in 18 carat white gold and manufactured to the highest standards in Britain.

Starting at retail prices from £945, this new collection designed by Sophie Breitmeyer is exclusively available today from Winterson online.

Kokichi Mikimoto is often credited with the invention of the cultured pearl, but there are many other contributors to the beginnings of the story of the pearl industry. Going back to the 13th century, and further to around 100BC in the Canton area, it is thought that the Chinese were the first to produce small blister pearls formed in the shape of Buddha. The Swedish naturalist Carl von Linné also devised a method for culturing pearls in 1748, believed now to be similar to the Chinese method, examples of which can be still seen in London today.

But it was not until much later around 1900, that the English-born Australian William Saville-Kent is believed to have developed a method for culturing the first fully round pearls using a nucleus and a small piece of mantle tissue, which is essentially the technique still used today by pearl farmers. A few years later in 1907 two Japanese men Tatsuhei Mise and Tokishi Nishikawa introduced this technique to Japan, both filing their own patents before eventually collaborating.

Kokichi Mikimoto is still commonly regarded as the founding father of the cultured pearl industry. From humble beginnings, he proved to be an inspiring entrepreneur driving his business to become eventually an international success.

Mikimoto was born in 1858 in Toba, Mie Prefecture in Japan. The son of a noodle seller, in his teens he started trading in noodles and vegetables to help provide for his family. But at the age of 20 Mikimoto discovered pearls, which at the time were mainly sold at inflated prices in Japan's markets as Pearl Powder was believed to be a cure for eye disease, fever, measles, insomnia and other ailments.

Mikimoto decided to extend his noodle business to trade in marine products and pearls, leased a farm at Ago Bay, Japan and from 1888 started to carry out his first experiments on cultured blister pearls using the Chinese method. Mikimoto's initial harvests were however unsuccessful until in July 1893, when he was able to produce a small first harvest of semi-spherical mabe pearls in Japan. Over the years, he would continue to experiment to create a fully round cultured pearl, eventually adopting the technique of Mise and Nishikawa.

These cultured pearls, promoted as “Mikimoto Pearls”, took the UK and European jewellery market by storm with their shape, colour and lustre being offered to early buyers at a twenty-five percent discount to the prevailing price of natural pearls. In 1921, the London Star reported that Japanese pearls were so skilfully made that it was impossible to distinguish between them and natural pearls.

Mikimoto was a skilled marketer and Mikimoto jewellery was offered to royalty, celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and promoted at international exhibitions using beautiful architectural models made with pearls. Meeting the Meiji Emperor at Ise Shrine, he declared "I would like to adorn the necks of all women around the world with pearls." By the beginning of World War II, Mikimoto had built one of the first international Japanese corporations with its pearls being sold across the world.

In 1954 Kokichi Mikimoto died at the age of 96. Although there are others that may also claim to be the inventor of the cultured pearl, it is undisputable that Kokichi Mikimoto was instrumental in helping to build the cultured pearl industry and the brand that today still bears his name.

Sophie graduated from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and, after having won a Goldsmiths Bursary in 2009, won a Bright Young Gems award in 2010, judged by Hilary Alexander of the Daily Telegraph, Vivienne Becker of FT's How to Spend it and Jessica Diamond of Wallpaper magazine. Since then her work has been featured in GQ and Vogue, as well as working with a number of established jewellery designers and brand names in the UK.

The inspiration behind Sophie Breitmeyer's own beautiful collections is drawn from looking at surface patterns and shapes within architecture and the flow and structure in dresses from fashion. With a great-grandfather who once was a diamond dealer at DeBeers, and later opened his own business in Hatton Garden in London, jewellery is part of the family heritage. Sophie complements each piece of her own designs with exotic precious stones. We love her signature ruffle style seen pictured above.

As well as her own work as a jewellery designer  Sophie, happily for us, has a keen interest in pearls:

"To make these new pieces for Winterson to be timeless meant not only being inspired by the new but also the old. Therefore as well as being influenced by current fashions for the use of block colour, the pearls that we have chosen for this collection are Japanese Akoya Pearls. These pearls are traditionally known for their fine quality and lustre and are a beautiful match for the gemstones that we have chosen: rubies, sapphires and tsavorite garnets.

In recent years the use of these iconic Japanese pearls has also been surpassed by the availability of Freshwater pearls from China. A lot of my influence with this collection was derived from the idea of bringing Akoya Pearls back to the forefront of jewellery design.

For this collection, which is made for Winterson in the UK, we have used the latest in design and jewellery manufacturing processes to ensure the highest quality finish possible for each piece."

Sophie Breitmeyer's collection of earrings and pendants will be available at Winterson early this Autumn.  Which one will be your favourite ?

We are very excited that the first of these ranges is now underway with Sophie Breitmeyer, who recently graduated from Central Saint Martins with a BA in Jewellery design.

Her creative approach to combining unusual stones and different coloured gold led Sophie to be short listed for the 2010 Bright Young Gems competition judged by Hilary Alexander of the Daily Telegraph, Vivienne Becker of FT's How To Spend It and Jessica Diamond of Wallpaper magazine.

We asked Sophie about her inspiration, working with pearls and the new Winterson collection:

"As a jewellery designer I am inspired by the world around us and the way in which we have built and designed it. Both fashion and architecture have always interested me, in both the modern and traditional aspects. I often use these influences to inspire my collections' shape and form. Having been lucky enough to travel when I am not working, I find that a lot of influence and inspiration can come from the culture and craft that I have seen in other countries around the world.

Pearls are a very underrated precious stone, yet can often be one of the most exciting and dynamic. I have designed this collection as I design all of my work, with three things in mind, the finished piece must be unique, classic and desirable. These are what I believe every woman looks for when she buys or is bought a piece of jewellery.

I have taken my influences for this designer jewellery collection for Winterson from the current fashion season's use of block colour, being simple yet elegant. To make these pieces timeless meant not only being inspired by the new, but also the old."

We can't wait to show you the collection by Sophie Breitmeyer for Winterson in the Autumn.

Since the invention of a technique for culturing pearls in the early part of the 1900s, the Akoya cultured pearl industry in Japan has been located in the Southern part of the country and towards the Pacific Ocean.

These areas include the Mie Prefecture in Honshu, the Ehime Prefecture in Shikoku and the Nagasaki and Kumamoto Prefectures in Kyushu. Ago Bay, in the Mie Prefecture, is one of the best known locations.

The site of a typical saltwater pearl farm is carefully selected for its environmental characteristics. Farmers look for small, well protected bays and inlets, which will protect the oysters and provide a rich flow of nutrients.

Most of the estimated 500 farms are still family owned businesses that farm pearls from an average stock of around 200,000 oysters each, although there are also a number of larger farming companies with over several million molluscs.

The pearl industry in Japan has enjoyed strong growth over the years but has recently suffered major setbacks from environmental algae blooms and competition from Freshwater pearl and also Akoya pearl production in China. The recent devastating tsunami hit the North East of Japan and the majority of pearl farms in the South were physically unaffected, although the economic impact may be felt for some time to come.

If you are thinking of celebrating college, high school and university success and achievement with a graduation gift, then pearls are a perfect choice.

At Winterson, we have an extensive range of beautiful pieces of pearl jewellery that make ideal graduation gifts. Classic pearl necklaces or pearl earrings are very popular, but if you are looking for something unique then our range of pendants would also be a special gift.

A truly classic choice, Japanese Akoya pearls have the timeless elegance of fine jewellery. This type of saltwater pearl was the first to be cultured in Japan in the early 1900s and today are continued to be loved for their quality.

Akoya pearls are typically white, with an overtone of pink, and are admired for their excellent lustre. Lustre describes the way that light is reflected by the physical structure of the pearl's surface. A strong lustre is one of the key qualities to look for when buying pearls and will help create a flattering glow for its wearer.

A pearl jewellery set of Japanese Akoya pearl necklace and stud earrings, perhaps completed with a bracelet, is a classic piece in any jewellery box. These pearls would be a beautiful graduation gift to be enjoyed on Graduation Day and as a reminder many years later after the ceremony.

To make the pleasure of receiving pearl jewellery as a gift more special, we offer all of our jewellery in a soft travel pouch presented in a luxurious jewellery box. Each item is gift-wrapped in our signature zig zag pattern and sealed with a Winterson flower.

Please Contact Us and we would be delighted to answer any questions that you may have or if you would simply like some advice about our pearls.

The industry of diving for pearls largely disappeared with the invention of a method for producing a cultured pearl in the early 20th century.

Although a romantic notion, pearl diving was an arduous experience. Natural pearls were gathered by pearl divers that would manually search the beds of oceans, lakes and rivers, perhaps finding only 3 or 4 quality pearls for every ton of oysters brought to the surface. Modern diving suits were unavailable, with divers in the Persian Gulf descending on weighted wooden platforms and baskets up to 40 times a day.

The rarity of natural pearls pushed divers down to depths of up to 20 metres requiring two to three minute breaths for each dive. Divers would suffer from decompression sickness, the cold waters and deep-sea pressure.

Japanese pearl divers, also known as Amas, have a thousand years of diving tradition working on Akoya pearl fisheries and farms. Their trade was passed down the generations from mother to daughter as women were considered better able to hold their breath and endure the cold longer.

Ama divers started to work at the age of eleven, even still diving in their sixties or seventies. They provided for their families while their husbands kept the house and brought up the children. Ama divers still work today, but primarily now for the tourist industry.

On modern day pearl farms, pearl divers work from boats and offshore inspecting oyster baskets that are suspended in water. Over the course of 18 to 24 months divers may check on an oyster's health, recovering the oyster for cleaning and eventually harvesting of a pearl.

The fascination with an image of the pearl diver hunting for pearls will likely persist for many years.

Here is the answer to the question 'What does the term “Momme” mean when valuing pearls?'

Pearl producers and wholesalers often deal in lots of hundreds or even thousands of pearls. For these larger lots, pearls are sold by weight and the measure used is typically the momme, a traditional Japanese unit of weight measurement that is equal to 3.75 grams.

Most Japanese akoya cultured pearls are sold by farmer’s cooperatives at Hama-age auctions. The pearls are usually graded into lots according to their quality and size and each lot is assigned a price per momme. For even larger lots of pearls, auctioneers may use the kan weight of measurement, which is equal to 1,000 momme.

Today the term momme is still widely used by farmers and wholesalers of Akoya, Tahitian and South Sea pearls, and also in the silk industry since the 19th century.

It is not, however, as frequently used in buying Chinese Freshwater pearls, where large pearl lots are weighed in grams, or by retailers which focus on the number of pearls used to make beautiful pearl jewellery, their size and quality.