La Joaillerie is a jewelry store specializing in pearls, established 50 years ago on rue Pastorelli, in the heart of the Dubouchage shopping district. Typical of Second Empire architecture, just a stone's throw from Nice's Old Town, the shops are still going strong.
Its central location provides easy access to local customers.
Once a trader in cultured pearls in the regions of the producing countries, Florence Labyre shares with us her passion for all the pearls on display in her workshop. Many varieties of pearls are within reach of the eyes, the hand and the purse.
The pleasure of touching this soft material, of hearing the sound of the little rattles of the pearl necklaces or bracelets remain timeless. These marvels of nature cannot leave any woman indifferent: classic to baroque, white or colored, there is inevitably a jewel that you will like to wear or to offer!
With Jacques Radigon, they form a complementary team for the advice in creation and even more judicious, in the accompaniment of the transformation of your old jewels in ornament in agreement with your style to be "magnificent"!
From time immemorial, the round white pearl has symbolized rarity and purity in connection with the spiritual dimension of its spherical shape produced by the most common oyster.
Pearl fishermen have braved all risks to hope to collect treasures hidden at the bottom of the sea. Unfortunately, miraculous fishing is not synonymous with wealth, as John Steinbeck, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, tells us in his book, "The Pearl" in 1947.
More broadly, pearls are produced by mechanisms not yet fully understood in marine mollusks that generate free shell-producing cells in the animal or following the visit of an intruder, which adheres to the shell, and causes a defensive reaction of coiling nacre on the external element.
Thus, the Japanese Kokichi Mikimoto,observing this natural phenomenon, had the idea of introducing a nucleus into the animal to provoke a process of coating of the perfect round artificial material and then collect the fruit of this production. After 20 years of testing, he commercialized the so-called Akoya pearls at the beginning of the 20th century. The Maison de Joaillerie still exhibits pieces of exceptional beauty at Place Vendôme in Paris.
Coco Chanel's passion for pearls has remained in the collective imagination as a symbol of her brand. The fashion effect and the demand of all the public favored the installation of numerous pearl farms from Japan to Australia, then later in China.
This is how the mass-produced Chinese pearls appeared either in freshwater molds or in factories with artificial materials (glass or artificially dyed) in the 2010s. This crisis of overproduction has led to a fall in prices according to Hubert Bari and David Lam, in their book published on the occasion of the exhibition "Pearls" in Doha, Editions Skira in 2010.
On the other hand, Tahitian black pearls are well referenced on their market and professionals have been able to organize themselves to define their own classification; the price can nevertheless go up to 15,000 € each.
As a result of this overproduction and the public's lack of discernment between the different qualities of pearls, the price range remains very large between the mass-produced cultured pearls in the molds in China and the natural, round, white pearl of more than 15 mm found in a bivalve (the difference can go from one euro to several million).
For example, a round white South Sea cultured pearl with a diameter of 15 to 15.5 mm can cost up to 3,500 euros for an "extra fine" quality.
The journalist of the Figaro of December 2011 tells the public sale remained in the annals.
"the flagship lot, La Peregrina, a legendary 203-grain (55-carat) pearl, won at auction for $37,000 in 1969 by Richard Burton against a member of the Spanish royal family, fetched $11.8 million (9.1 million euros). This pear-shaped drop, later mounted in a Cartier set, was found in the 16th century by a slave in the Gulf of Panama. Pearls, whether white or colored, have been adorning people since ancient times.
A sign of power in India or of femininity in Western culture, their organic origin from the depths of the oceans makes them mysterious and fascinating. Pearls embody the beauty of nature.
