pendant on a chain, a look perfected by pearl specialist and London jeweller, Jane Sarginson. Catherine Best captures the mood of female power in an architectural cocktail ring, in which a large Tahitian pearl, with peacock glints, is set at the centre of a towering, graphic diamond cocktail ring. Copenhagen-based Bille Brahe, who studied at London’s Royal College of Art, says she likes to strip away all superficiality and allow the pearl’s mysterious beauty to shine supreme. She explains, ‘While I had always admired pearl jewellery, I previously thought of it as very traditional and not particularly aligned with what I would want to wear. I then began to design pearl pieces that were decidedly modern, simple and in some cases industrial looking, like my Ellipse earring.’ At Tasaki, the Japanese jeweller and pearl specialist that recently splashed down on Bond Street, creative director and fashion designer Prabal Gurung has introduced a powerfully modernist abstract style that has, without doubt, coaxed the pearl out of its shell and into high fashion. Gurung’s Balance collection contrasts the geometric sphere of the pure white Akoya pearl with strong, straight gold lines, while in his Tasaki Atelier high jewellery Waterfall collection cascades of silky pearl strands fall in long, luscious fringes from a single large South Sea pearl entangled in diamonds, on rings, necklaces and shoulder-grazing earrings.
FROM TOP RIGHT: Jane Sarginson hand-made earrings in 18ct white gold with diamonds and South Sea pearls; Catherine Best’s Time To Be Free ring features a central Tahitian pearl; Prabal Gurung is the fashion designer Creative Director behind Japanese jewellery Tasaki, whose Atelier collection features these Waterfall earrings; Ana Khouri Pearl Mirian ear-cuff
Melanie Georgacopoulos, another RCA graduate, designs the exclusive M/G for Tasaki collection. Having set out from the start to debunk the pearl’s conservativism, she has deconstructed the classic pearl necklace, literally, by slicing pearls, revealing their innermost secrets. Now, her graphic, Bauhausinspired Cube collection juxtaposes the perfect spherical pearl with a cube composed of slices of mother-of-pearl, a material she explores and elevates ingeniously and passionately. In the newest Nacre collection, exceptionally large and lustrous slices of mother-of-pearl in iridescent tones of gold, lavender, peacock and white, are built into geometric structures, and topped with co-ordinating pink freshwater, South Sea and Tahitian pearls. The pearl ear-cuff is set to be London’s must-have jewel of the season, with its rebellious, urban, punk flavour contradicting the pearl’s fragility and femininity. For designer-jeweller Ana Khouri, whose work was presented in an exhibition at Phillips, London in September, the pearl both embodies radiance and reconnects her to nature. Her Pearl Mirian ear-cuff plays with the classic pearl stud, placing it just inside the ear, via a slim gold bar, while her Pearl Time single earring re-imagines the iconic graduated pearl strand as a luminous, lyrical, tapering trail, establishing an entirely new silhouette. This new flow of graduated pearls is a key design feature of Yoko London’s Raindrop collection; the rhythmic trail of pearls slides next to a rivière of diamonds, along a linear necklace and around hoop earrings. In another act of jewel anarchy, the pearl
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