Noted: A New Era of Pearls

If you found out that your necklace of shiny, flawless pearls was created through the efforts of several scientists in a lab, would it still be just as valuable to you? A man named Zhan Weijian would like to think so. Weijan is owner of Grace Pearl, one of the largest companies in the freshwater pearl farming industry. Located far from Tahiti and other traditional pearl purveyors, Weijian’s company operates out of east-central China where pearls are grown in former rice fields. Chinese pearls, once worthless and with all the authenticity of a piece of costume jewelry, are now able to hold their own against the aesthetic perfection of natural, saltwater pearls.

Weijian’s company works in conjunction with the local university to better understand the development stages of the mussels that yield freshwater pearls. Within his facility, where Weijian is able to offer blue collar-standard living to his workers, men and women sit at long benches, inserting tiny pieces of mussel tissue inside live mussels’ shells. It may take four years from that point for a pearl to fully form. Among Weijian’s innovations are pearls that have vivid hues of pink, purple, and bronze, colors seldom created without unnatural dying proceses. The Edison pearl — named after the inventor Thomas Edison — is a guarded secret, requiring mussels selected through genetic research.

While new developments in pearl farming might be seen as a threat to saltwater pearlers, many consumers might finally own genuine pearls for the first time. At Honora, one of the biggest Manhattan-based importers of Chinese pearls, chief executive Joel Schechter compared a Tahitian strand of pearls that cost $14,000 to a strand from China priced at $1,800. While there was a noticeable difference in hue, both strands were made of shiny, blemish-free pearls. “[China] has made pearls affordable for the average working woman,” Schecter told The New York Times. At a time when budgets are tight, this is good news for women who want to treat themselves. Yet what has made pearls precious throughout history is not just their luster, hue, or texture — it’s always been the divine chance of opening the one treasure-laden mussel out of thousands. Now, if guys in white lab coats peering into microscopes are responsible for creating pearls, will these pearly white orbs continue to be just as coveted as their saltwater counterparts?