Mikimoto
www.mikimoto.com is
Japanese pearl jewelry company that sells expensive pearls
that are more than you can pay for them at the Oxfam 3
stores down on Windsor High Street.
Company
founder Kokichi Mikimoto (1858-1954), dedicated decades
of his young life to researching methods of creating a
process of 'culturing' pearls. In 1893, he succeeded. At
that time, naturally occurring pearls were becoming increasingly
scarce, partly due to over-harvesting; today, they are
extremely rare.
The process of culturing pearls involves the raising of
healthy mother oysters, some of which are then selected to
be inserted with a nucleus, which is made from round beads
of freshwater mussels from the Mississippi and Tennessee
rivers. These oysters are then raised in pearl farms, before
the pearls are harvested from the oysters around a year and
a half later. The entire process takes around four years.
Mikimoto only uses the best quality pearls, with a good shape
and high lustre, in the top 10% of the harvest.
The significance of Mikimoto's breakthrough invention was recognized
when, in 1930, he was invited to the Imperial Palace as one
of the top 10 Japanese inventors.
Throughout his lifetime, Kokichi Mikimoto was constantly
acquiring new ideas about jewellery and fashion from travelling
around the world, and incorporating the best designs and
processes into his own company. The distinctive Mikimoto
style has arisen from the fusion of traditional Japanese
design and techniques with European design ideas.
The Mikimoto mission lives on today, through the maintenance
of the highest standards of quality in the pearl industry,
and the continual strive for the finest materials and the
most elegant of jewellery.
You can buy:
- Collections
- Earrings
- Pendants
- Necklaces
- Bracelets
- Rings
- Other Stuff
The
necklace above costs £7300.00 and you get a nice box to
put them in. You
can find other items of jewelry and stuff
at their site www.mikimoto.com.
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