go forth with confidence and ropes and ropes of pearls...






Waking up on Thanksgiving in the beautiful back country of Mendocino County was lovely.
Wifi is shaky in the country,
but I was able download the blog post from Passage des Perles , and warmed me like none other.
Last Spring when I visited with La Duchesse and her lovely family in Montreal, she handed me a gorgeous necklace of lustrous near round fresh water pearls that were dear to her heart, but said that she didn't wear that length much anymore.
Her account of what these pearls meant to her is a story that makes what we do worth it!
(really any account by La Duchesse is worth the read, we read them aloud in the studio, and you can sign up for her blog to be emailed to you too!)
I love bringing special pearl pieces back to life, giving them a current appeal while retaining the memories they hold for the owner.
It was an honor to rework these pearls for her.
Thankful for the ladies who trust us to handle their treasures.
We love what we do, we laugh, we play, we work with beautiful material, your stories and photos of how these pieces touch your soul and bring smiles to your faces is SO much a part of what gives us the steam to keep going all these years.
For the circle of friends and family we have created world wide, each one of you:
a pearl in the greatest strand ever!
Thank you all.
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We are very excited about all the new styles we have to offer you this Spring.
The first being this delicate but modern necklace we deemed The Duchesse .
(in honor of the never failing fashion advice to be found on Passage Des Perles Blog )
The luster of the South Sea baroque white pearls is fantastic and the 16.5mm natural silver color round Tahitian pearl in the center keeps this necklace from being overlooked! The necklace is made completely of 14k yellow gold and is finished with a small lobster claw clasp.
Along the same lines, but slightly less formal is this 20" long medley of Chinese fresh water pearls spaced with chain.
We also have a few new mixed metal tiny seed bead necklaces that are light and easy to wear with warmer weather.
This series of necklaces is made with 2mm oxidized sterling silver beads, mixed hues of pink tourmaline, Tahitian keshi pearls, Japan akoya keshi pearls and high luster white South Sea baroque pearls. In some of the necklaces we added gold vermeil paddles (which were cast from ancient South East Asian beads, and tiny textured gold vermeil beads to add warmth. I love how the tiny beads and spacing allows for the pearls to really show their individual shapes and colors.
We are also excited to bring back some of our favorite material to work with :
Sea of Cortez Pearls
These mabe pearls really exhibit why these shells are called "Rainbow lipped oysters".
Stay tuned, we are still uploading a treasure trove of new designs!
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You can find the sign up section on the bottom right of our home page.
I'll send out an email with the Spring Sale Coupon code just before the 29th!
With warmth from all of us here at Kojima Pearl
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With only 9 days between getting home from Tucson and leaving for Asia on a pearl buying trip… I barely had enough time to unpack, get a cold, have a birthday, fill the orders from Tucson, sleep and pack again… but by the grace of pearl fairies everywhere we made the flight! Tokyo is always fun, bright lights, quirky and polite people, and fantastic food. On our second day in Japan, we went to see our dear friends, the farmers at Lake Kasumi ga Ura. We spent the day with them, talking about their latest harvest, drinking tea and of course looking at pearls. Please stay tuned in the coming weeks for the addition of new Japan Kasumi pearls to our website. We had a lovely mini vacation in Japan. We accompanied Fuji to his childhood home in Miyanoshita Japan. We visited the shop where the original Pacific Pearls store was in the 1950’s. We visited the Fujiya hotel where Fuji and his sister Aloha were frequent visitors at the heated pool as children… and we visited Lake Ashi where Fuji’s father Rudolf was an avid swimmer. We spent a wonderful time at a hot springs in Hakone … with a view of Mt. Fuji from the pools! WOW what a magical experience, to sit in a natural hot spring with snow on the ground and Mt. Fuji in the distance. We were very lucky to have this view despite the winter weather.
When we landed in Hong Kong … This was the forecast.
And this was the view from the ferry coming home from visiting a friend in an outlying island.
So we splished and splashed from one office to the next trying to see as many pearls as we could before the Hong Kong show started. Most of my days were spent like this.. Making pairs and sorting through thousands upon thousands of pearls to find the most beautiful and unusual ones I could.
Fujis sister Aloha was in town from Bangkok and it was a joy to accompany her to the Hong Kong show as she has been in the pearl business for her entire life and is also a GREAT designer… So fun to have shopping buddies and teachers. It had been so long since i last went to the Hong Kong Jewelry show, I had forgotten how much fun it is! Here is a photo of her wearing our simple drop earrings , so complimentary with her elegant purple blouse!
The weather cleared just before the show began and these are photos from the roof of our building in Tsim Sha Tsui.
My favorite place to escape the hustle and bustle of a city with 7 million people!
The show was fantastic! I really enjoyed seeing so many old and new friends and shopping for pearls and other jewels for three long days!
Here are JUST A FEW of my favorite finds. I will of course post them all on the website little by little upon returning home.
AND as an added bonus.. Whilst I was away.. our team at home produced some very tasty pearl rings in our studio in downtown San Rafael.
These are simply warming my heart right now!
So the time has come to board the plane and say goodbye to the balmy days of Asia for a few months..
Thank you all for supporting what I do.. there is magic in it all.