Fashion trends may come and go, in jewelry as in clothing and hairstyles, but just as in persons arenas, there are some elements that never seem to go out of style. In fact, they get reinvented for a new audience. The ballet flat. The little black dress. Pearl jewelry is one such fashion evergreen that just goes on and on. Though, far from the stuffy chokers of society matrons or demure Grace Kelly single strands, pearls today are used in jewelry as fresh and fashion-forward as any dressmaking collection.
Rambaud of Paris has been adorning French women with beautiful jewelry while 1885. Today the company specializes in cultured pearls from Tahiti and other parts of the South Seas such as China and Japan.
An organic gem, courtesy of a friendly oyster:
For the unqualified, a cultured pearl is not artificial. It is simply a “farmed” report of a pearl created naturally by ocean mollusks such as oysters in certain parts of the world. These “wild” pearls are shaped when a grain of sand lodges in the flesh of the mollusk. The pearl is the result of the animal’s retort to the foreign object. A guard mechanism kicks-in and coats the particle with layer after layer of a substance called nacre, or mother-of-pearl, which eventually becomes thick enough to form a pearl. The result is just as logically beautiful as pearls found in the wild, and can be restricted as to color and shape depending on the conditions. As in the wild, some pearls are refined in salt water and others in freshwater, giving different properties to the pearls.
Pearls: Not just for Jackie O any longer
Rambaud offers almost a dozen different collections featuring these pearls, in a range of styles from traditional to rock-n-roll, for an
amazing variety of looks. If you think of pearls as being white, or cream, or the occasional grey, think again. The cultured pearls in Rambaud’s collected works come in a dazzling array of colors, including pink, gold, even chocolate.
The cultured pearl earrings on the website range in price from under 100 euros for a simple Tahitian freshwater pearl and silver pair to nearly 1000 euros for a fantastic set of 9mm grey-green pearls set off with .028 carats of diamonds. There is a wide collection, in between, so every set of ears can find lovely cultured pearl earrings at a price that sounds good to them.
If a cultured pearl necklace is more your thing, you can find an range of lengths and fashion-forward styles at Rambaud. Pearls are the stars, but these necklaces bring in motivating supporting characters. you’ll find original styles including long pendants with iridescent disks or pearls dangling from delicate silver chains, as in the “Tactiles” collection, or an Art Deco-inspired creation combining black and white pearls in “Les Annees Folles” collection.