Wear This Year’s Pantone Ultra Violet with Pearls

January 2018

The Pantone Color of the Year for 2018 has just been announced: Pantone Ultra Violet.

“Inventive and imaginative, Ultra Violet lights the way to what is yet to come,” says Pantone.com.

It couldn’t be more fitting to a fairly new technology in freshwater pearl farming: Edison Pearls. These unusual beauties come in all sorts of colors: pink, bronze, peach, gold, champagne and… purple. Or in Pantone world, Ultra Violet.

The purple Edison pearls are exquisite, ranging from light to deep purple. They really embody the dramatic, provocative, thoughtful and complex character of Ultra Violet. A brooch, bracelet or necklace in this unusual shade will make anyone look twice.

High Quality at an Affordable Price

Edison pearls are the highest quality pearl you can find at an affordable price. They are made when pearl farmers place a round bead inside a mussel, creating a perfectly round and unblemished pearl. Unlike the freshwater pearls of old, which used to be characterized by their odd, uneven shapes, Edison pearls are in fact so near perfect that they are compared to South Sea pearls in size, smoothness and luster. And due to the freshwater environment, which makes it easier to regulate the water quality, they are much more affordable. This means that you could get an almost perfect pearl – in a rare color too – at a price much lower than you would have paid for a South Sea or Tahitian pearl.

To read more about the difference between South Sea and Edison Pearls, click here.

Why Are They Called Edison Pearls?

The unique history of the name of the Edison pearls makes them even more fitting to Pantone Ultra Violet. Edison Pearls were first introduced to the market by Grace Pearls, a Chinese company run by Zhan Weijian. It came after years and years of research, and their methods are still guarded closely today. So while Ultra Violet lights the way to come (as Pantone.com describes it), Edison Pearls are, according to a New York Times interview with Weijian, “emblematic of the growing scientific and technological sophistication of Chinese pearl making.”

When asked where the name ‘Edison Pearls’ comes from, Weijian quoted the famous inventor Thomas Edison, who said: “There are two things which couldn’t be made at my laboratory – diamonds and pearls.” It’s believed Edison said this upon meeting Mikimoto Kokichi, a Japanese inventor credited with the creation of the first cultured pearl.

There’s no doubt about the timeless beauty and style of pearls. They’ve been worn since the most ancient of times, and they still are. (Decades later, women still marvel at the stylish figure Audrey Hepburn made in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s in that luxurious pearl necklace with several strings of perfect pearls.)

So what better way to wear this year’s Pantone Color of the Year than in Edison pearls? It’s the new, innovative and high-quality pearl now available to the everyday woman, and their innovation – like the color – makes you wonder about what is yet to come in the timeless world of pearl jewelry.

Here are some of the favorites from our shop:

Infinity Pearl Necklace