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What a pearler

The story of Australia's modern pearling industry begins with a fleet of abandoned pearl luggers on a Darwin beach.

It was the early 1950s, and the invention of plastic was crippling the booming trade of mother of pearl fishing for the production of buttons, buckles and cutlery.

The luggers belonged to Nicholas Paspaley, a Greek migrant who fell in love with the industry as a teenager and built his business from scratch, though the pearling pioneer wasn't deterred by the current state of events.

Paspaley turned his attention inward, from mother-of-pearl shell to the pearl itself, the lustrous orb so rarely found inside the shells of oysters harvested from the wild that, back then, they were considered a bonus and not the main focus of the industry.

Paspaley knew that the Japanese had been successful in growing substantial quantities of their native Akoya pearl within controlled environments. With the help of Japanese scientists, he set about creating his own pearl farm in 1956, some 420kms north of Broome.

Pearls form naturally when a foreign object such as grain of sand, or parasite, finds its way into the pearl oyster, causing the oyster to react by coating the irritant with layers of mother-of-pearl, or nacre.

Paspaley's team intended to simulate this by retrieving the indigenous South Sea oyster from the sea bed and manually inserting an irritant to promote pearl growth. But they couldn't find a way to keep the South Sea oyster alive until harvest. By 1970, the venture had failed and Paspaley's boats were on the beach again.

He needed new direction, and he received it when son Nick Jnr returned from university with an economics degree and some fresh ideas. Over time, the two introduced radical farming methods that were successful in keeping the oysters alive and nurturing the growth of cultured pearls, thus beginning the extraordinary rise of the Paspaley family company and the Australian pearling industry as a whole.

Fifty years after Paspaley's farm first opened for operation, Australia is the main producer of South Sea cultured pearls, generating exports valued at approximately $180 million annually.

Several pearl farms now dot the tropical coastline from Broome to the Northern Territory border, across the Arnhem Land Coast and down to Cairns. The gold and silver-lipped oysters that produce white South Sea pearls with silvery, cream, pink and golden undertones thrive in Australia's northern waters because the waters are pristine, there are few people, and the active tides serve to distribute nutrient-rich material for the oysters to consume.

Pearls are farmed in Australia using the same implantation concept devised by the Japanese, and then Paspaley, decades before - only now, the technology has improved. Cultivators know that the best way to achieve high quantities of large, luminous cultured pearls is to implant each oyster shell with a round nucleus drawn from fresh water mussel, since it is least likely to be rejected by the oyster. They also know to give each shell plenty of time to recover from the stress of capture and surgery, and to regularly clean and turn each shell in order to promote even coverage of nacre around the nucleus.

The boats used in the pearling process look nothing like Paspaley's luggers of yesteryear, and are equipped with surgically-clean laboratory and operating facilities for technicians to implant the oysters at the collecting grounds.

Fortunately for Australian pearl industry players, the South Sea pearl is regarded around the world as the most beautiful of all varieties. Compared with the other main contenders - Tahitian, Akoya and Chinese Freshwater pearls - the white South Sea pearl is consistently the largest, the most luminous, and possesses the most prized natural colour.

Traditionally, Japan has absorbed the vast majority of Australia's South Sea pearl production, due in particular to the considerable demand for large, white pearls to be set as engagement rings. These days, however, Europe, the US and the rest of Asia are vying for hefty slices of the product.

This spread of overseas interest is clearly a product of the intense worldwide marketing strategies employed in recent years by the three major Australian pearling companies, Paspaley, Autore and Kailis.

"There's a huge increase in demand," says Kailis head designer Simon Henderson. "A lot of the major fashion houses and luxury jewellery companies are starting to use pearls in their collections."

In addition to selling loose pearls wholesale, all three producers now use the finest pearls from their annual harvests to create their own luxury jewellery brands, selling them direct to consumers via showrooms in Australia and beyond, and to exclusive retail outlets across the globe. Most recently, they've all been busy securing their designs around the necks of starlets at red carpet events, and models on international catwalks. As such, women are now more likely to find South Sea pearl jewellery in the pages of high fashion magazines than they are rifling though their grandmother's jewellery box.

Far from the simple pearl strand of a bygone era, new designs are edgy and modern.

"Classic pearl jewellery will always be popular," Henderson says, "but pearls are becoming more interesting because contemporary designs are presenting pearls in a different light. For example, a lot of younger people are wearing pearl jewellery with jeans now."

Black Elixir, the latest Kailis collection, is a case in point. Henderson has taken the round, symmetrical white pearl, and pared it with black rhodium on gold and rose-cut diamonds for a nocturnal, vintage look.

"The most sought-after pearl is still the round pearl with high lustre and a pink hue, so we've used it in this collection and contrasted it with unusual diamonds that are cut by hand and have no specific shape or geometry," says Henderson. "It's something a little bit different to the traditional white gold and pearl strands."

Equally interesting is Paradis, Paspaley's very-feminine 2007 collection, featuring pearls alongside petal-like motifs fashioned from pavé-set white diamonds, pink diamonds and pink sapphires, all set into yellow and white gold and platinum.

And Autore has produced Oceania, a colourful range of brooches in octopus, jellyfish and other sea creature shapes, plus earrings and necklaces in coral forms that match diamonds and pearls.

"All the pearl producers are doing something a bit different, which is fantastic for the South Sea pearl category as a whole," Henderson says.

Around the Abrolhos Islands - some 60kms west of Geraldton, West Australia - Pia Boschetti farms the black South Sea pearl alongside the small, whitish Akoya pearl, born from oysters found in the surrounding waters.

Under the name Latitude Pearls, Boschetti sells some of her harvest loose to jewellers in Australia and Japan, and sets the rest into jewellery for retailers in WA and QLD, as well as her own Geraldton store.

"Akoya pearls are always huge sellers because the Japanese buy them up in huge quantities," Boschetti says, "but black pearls are also becoming quite popular because in Australia and are seen as a fresh alternative to the traditional white, especially with the younger market."

In addition to unusual colours, Boschetti has found that customers are also seeking new shapes and designs at all price points.

"People are becoming more adventurous and going for drop and oval-shaped pearls, pearls mixed with diamonds and coloured stones, or a one-off pearl bangle with earrings and a pendant in similar colours. Lately I've been selling about equal amounts of Mabe pearls because they can be set in a ring or pendant for a really affordable price."

Across on the East Coast, high-end jewellery designer Bill Hicks has been fielding a higher-than-usual number of pearl jewellery orders from his Sydney studio.

"I would suggest there's a slight pearl renaissance at the moment - 2007 has certainly been a strong pearl year for me," he says. "From a man's perspective pearls are a safe gift because pearls are a staple part of a wardrobe just like a good pair of jeans."

Hicks, too, has discovered that his clients are keen to step away from classic formulas.

"I've sold a couple of really good strands," he says, "but people are asking for something unusual, like large keshi (freeform) pearls with some colour, or they're asking for an original design using South Sea pearls. People want bespoke, one-off pieces of jewellery."

Hicks will continue to put pearls with white gold or platinum, diamonds and coloured gems such as aquamarine and pink tourmaline, but he's careful to point out that pearl jewellery will likely have a shelf-life.

"There's been a huge push for pearls over the last 10-15 years by Paspaley, Autore and Kailis in particular," he says, "and recently individual retailers seem to be pushing pearls again. But it's a cyclical thing, and there will be highs and lows."

With Australian pearling companies experiencing steady growth, those lows seem some time away. Though young, the market has already established itself as one of the country's most lucrative, and an industry-managed quota should help to maintain demand for years to come.

Pearls of wisdom

Fast facts about the pearling industry

• Australian pearl farms are currently producing just under three tonnes (700 kan) of white South Sea pearls per year, representing a 260 percent increase in production compared with six years ago.

• The annual seeding quota is 922,000 pearl oysters in Western Australia and 480,000 pearl oysters in the Northern Territory. Technology allows a percentage of pearl oysters to be seeded a second and third time, dependant on the health of the oyster and the quality of previous pearls.

• While Indonesia is the biggest producer of South Sea pearls (exceeding 1000 kan in 2007), Australia is the leader in value with a market share of almost 50 per cent.

• Of all the South Sea pearls produced in Australia, just 2 to 4 per cent remain in the country for local use. The vast majority are exported to the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, France, Germany, Spain and the UK.

• Globally, the global pearl farming market is estimated at $US1.5 billion, a figure tipped to double by 2010.

Pearls around the world

South Sea Pearls

South Sea pearls come in white and black. The white ones are primarily cultured in the northern waters of Australia, the Philippines and Indonesia. They don't require bleaching, tinting, dying or bleaching, range in size from 8mm right up to 20mm and come in various shapes. The black ones are found over a wider area stretching from the Cook Islands, eastward through Tahiti to the Tuamoto Archipelago and the Gambier Islands in French Polynesia.

Tahitian pearls

Tahitian pearls are cultured in the atolls and lagoons of the South Pacific, tend more toward drop shapes than round and vary in size from 7mm-15mm. Tahitian pearls range from light grey to black with shades of green and purple. They are more expensive than Akoya pearls, but cheaper than South Sea varieties. The rarest colour is peacock green.

Akoya pearls

Farmed mainly in Japan and China, Akoya pearls are primarily round or oval in shape, measure a relatively-small 2mm-10mm and ranging in colour from pinkish white to cream and silvery blue. Akoya pearls were the first spherical, cultured pearls produced, and they are now the pearls most used internationally in necklace strands.

Freshwater pearls

Freshwater pearls can be found in bays and rivers in Japan, China and the US. They are essentially cultivated from freshwater molluscs and are less lustrous than salt water cultured pearls, but their low price and unique colours and shapes have made them popular in recent years.

Kasuminga pearls

The Kasuminga is a new type of pearl that comes from a lake northeast of Tokyo. The mussels are a crossbreed between Japanese and Chinese freshwater mussels, and are implanted with round or flat seeds. Kasuminga pearls come in rosy hues of light to dark pink.