The Pearl, Queen of Gems

Hiya!

Pearls are the “Queen of Gems.” They have been coveted since the beginning of time. Pearls are officially the world’s oldest gem. Unlike gemstones which are mined from the earth, a living organism produces a pearl. As a matter of fact it is a freak of nature! A pearl is formed when an irritant of some sort like a shell or parasite becomes lodged in an oyster’s soft inner body causing the oyster to secrete a crystalline substance building up around the irritant thus forming a pearl!

Modern Pearls

The pearl’s discovery cannot be attributed to one person since they have long appeared before written history. Pearls have been worn as a form of adornment for millennia. This is known thanks to a fragment of pearl jewelry found in the tomb of a Persian princess dating back to 420 BC and is now on display at the Louvre in Paris. Some Historians have pearls dating back to as far as 3500 BC.

Long before the discovery of oil, pearls were once found in great abundance in the Persian Gulf. The Persian Gulf was the center of the pearl trade and pearls carried great source of wealth and importance in Arab cultures.

During the 19^th century, due to the escalating demand for pearls in Western Europe, where ladies of nobility wore elaborate pearl necklaces, bracelets and brooches, the pearl supply began to dwindle. Today natural pearls are among the rarest of gems. Their almost entirely depleted supply means they are found very infrequently in the seas off Bahrain and Australia. Not every oyster produces a pearl. It can take over a ton of oysters to find a few gems quality pearls. Natural pearls have become extremely rare and costly!

Pearls are steeped with legend, folklore and history. They were and still are today prized possessions of royalty, celebrities past and present, president’s wives and the likes of gals like us! Pearls were presented as gifts to Chinese royalty. In ancient Rome pearl jewelry was considered the ultimate status symbol. Julius Caesar passed a law limiting the wearing of pearls only to the ruling classes.

Legend has it that Cleopatra bet Marc Antony that she could serve the most expensive dinner in history. During the dinner she took off her two largest pearls in the world, and dropped them in a glass of wine. The pearls dissolved. She drank the mixture and won the bet!

Queen Elizabeth was a huge fan of peals. She wore them in her hair, on her clothes and in layers around her neck. It is rumored that in this portrait she is wearing Hanoverian pearls, which she bought cheaply off the struggling Mary Queen of Scots, just years before she had her executed!

The most famous pearl in history, the La Peregrina worn for generations of European royalty, was given to Liz Taylor as a gift in 1969 by Richard Burton. In 2011 it was sold by Sothebys for over 11 million!

Coco Chanel was rarely seen without ropes of pearls wrapped around her neck. She candidly admitted that many were fake. She intermingled the fake with real without anyone knowing the wiser. She was in fact one of the first women to popularize faux pearls and the birth of costume jewelry.

One of Hollywood’s most recognizable stills is Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” wearing elbow-length gloves, a classic black dress, tiara and famous pearls. Not only did Hepburn wear pearls in the film, but rarely was she seen off screen without pearls and classic dresses.

Former first ladies’ Michelle Obama, Barbara Bush and Jacqueline Kennedy almost always wore pearls.

We often think of pearls as being traditional, classic and jewelry that our grandmother wore. But some of today’s pearls are anything but! Pearls can be playful and fun! They can be worn with jeans and a tank. Get creative with your pearls girls!