{"id":12690,"date":"2022-09-21T12:11:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pret-a-reporter.co.uk\/blog\/?p=12690"},"modified":"2023-06-01T09:06:24","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T08:06:24","slug":"pearl-jewellery-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pret-a-reporter.co.uk\/blog\/pearl-jewellery-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Pearlcore: The History of Pearl Jewellery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Not to be confused with parkour (PARKOUR! PARKOUR!), pearlcore is name given to a trend propelled by Gen Z’s nostalgia for their joyful youth, full of memories of their mums’s or grandma’s pearl jewellery as well as crafty beadwork. And thus, pearlcore has emerged as a trend.<\/p>\n

Pearls have not been in fashion for years, and at the same time, they have not not been in fashion either. These organic gemstones have been the Switzerland of jewellery for quite a few decades, but they did have some grand moments throughout their history as human adornments. Let’s explore some peculiarities about pearls.<\/p>\n

Pearl jewellery history starts with cocktails<\/h2>\n

The oldest pearl in history was discovered in 2012 in the United Arab Emirates. It was carbon dated to be around 7,500 years old, reaching the Neolithic age. Interestingly, in ancient times pearls were not called pearls<\/em>, they were referred to as margaritas<\/em>. This is because families of pearl-bearing oysters are called Margaritiferidae<\/em>. This means that if your name is Margaret or Margarita, your name in theory is also Pearl. Handy to know, in case you needed an alterego.<\/p>\n

Speaking of margaritas, here’s a very potent cocktail idea: Vinegar and pearls, from Cleopatra’s own recipe book. When not grounding lapis lazuli<\/a> or malachite<\/a>, the Queen of Egypt was inventing novel ways to showcase her superiority to noblemen and leaders of other countries. Time well spent, if you ask me. One such occasion saw Cleopatra pop a natural pearl into vinegar, see it dissolve and then drink it. Because pearls were extraordinarily rare, this was an extraordinarily brash and brazen move. Also, was this the world’s first margarita cocktail? Although the dissolved pearl was stirred into the vinegar, it’s prudent to assume the audience was shaken, and according to Roman author and naturalist Pliny, this made a lasting impression on Marc Anthony.<\/p>\n

Generally speaking in Ancient Rome, pearls were having a moment. Another legend has it that Vitellius, an army general who later became an emperor, pawned his mother’s pearl earrings to finance both a military and PR campaigns to restore his good name.<\/p>\n

Moving further through history, in medieval and renaissance periods nobility wore pearls as jewellery and also embellishments on their clothing. The evidence of this is abundant – from portraits you could buy in antique stores to paintings hanging in museums. Everyone who was anyone liked to be dripping in pearls if they could afford those, plus fork out for a personal portrait commission.<\/p>\n

Around the early 1700s the fashion for diamonds slowly started to take over, and because pearls were so notoriously expensive and rare, it was simply easier to go for the oh-shiny gem. However, the Victorian era’s mourning jewellery trend<\/a> had brought popularity back to pearls, using them as a symbol for tears.<\/p>\n

But not everyone was into crying. In 1893 Kokichi Mikimoto forever changed the history of pearls by creating the first cultured pearl. What had been a luxury exclusively for nobility suddenly became accessible to necks of all women around the world. Luckily, this has been Mikimoto’s mission all along.<\/p>\n

Types of pearls<\/h2>\n

Nearly all pearls on the market are cultured as natural pearls remain extremely rare – mostly found in the seas off Bahrain and Australian Indian Ocean waters. In fact, some natural pearls are found as a bi-product of cultured pearl diving.<\/p>\n

Cultured pearls are created exactly the same way as natural pearls, just with human intervention of seeding a nucleus into a living oyster in a controlled environment. Just like with a natural pearl, the outcome can not be predicted – the lustre, colour or size is all up to nature. So, let’s explore the types of cultured pearls out there:<\/p>\n