CHOCOLATE CULTURED PEARLS: Beauty by Subtraction

You might not think so, but chocolate goes well with red—maybe too well. Chocolate pearls and red carpet, that is. So says designer Erica Courtney, Hollywood's reining avatar of taste when it comes to adding the final touch of jewelry for scores of starlets who walk down the red runway that leads into the Kodak Theater on Oscar night.

Nearly three years ago, Courtney was shown Tahitian pearls bleached brown, and given the tasty brand name of "Chocolate Pearls." Ever since, she has been on a personal crusade to put these sepia splendors on the ear lobes, necks, wrists, and fingers of as many celebrities as she can. Judging from the yet-to-crest popularity of these pearls, she has succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. And there's the rub. Without intending to do so, Courtney's dream has created a nightmare for the pearl industry.

True chocolate pearls are much more of a rarity than the publicity that surrounds them would lead one to think. They are produced by a proprietary bleaching process developed by Ballerina Pearls in New York and never, the firm claims, duplicated by anyone else. Ordinarily, I would be suspicious of such a boast—especially by the inventor. But GIA, which has conducted extensive tests of these pearls, says it has yet to see their like from anyone else.

After Ballerina enhances the few select Tahitian pearls that it believes will benefit from its bleaching process, the vast majority are sold to Emiko Pearls in Bellevue, Washington. Emiko, in turn, sells at least half of these pearls to Courtney. While that's great news for Ballerina, Emiko, and Courtney, it's bad news for everyone else. Courtney's advocacy of chocolate pearls has been a major contributing factor to a dramatic shortage. I know what many of you are thinking. What shortage? Chocolate pearls are everywhere these days.

Not true chocolate pearls. Most of what you are seeing is Brand-X pearls created, in most cases, by a silver nitrate dyeing process to look like bleached chocolate pearls. A generic look-alike is being sold as the genuine article—at perhaps a 100 to 1 ratio.

No wonder Ballerina, Emiko, and Courtney are up in arms. They feel chocolate pearls are the victim of what might be called battered brand syndrome. They're not the only ones bothered by the glut of dyed brown large pearls. But others blame their agitation on a separate, related form of brand abuse. "Dyeing Tahitian pearls crosses a line that should never have been crossed," says Betty Sue King of King's Ransom, Sausalito, California. "It cheapens the prestigious name of South Sea pearls."

Those are harsh words from a pearl dealer who unhesitatingly sells dyed Chinese freshwater pearls. King explains her double standard: "Chinese pearls are a high-volume product. Tahitian pearls are a high-integrity product. You shouldn't play with Tahitian pearls the way you can with Chinese pearls." King has raised an issue that could divide the pearl community as deeply as it has the colored stone community.

THE DISCLOSURE DILEMMA

High tech has run amok in the jewelry industry—making possible the mass transformation of junk gems. While rehabilitation of reject material isn't in and of itself a bad thing, the public has no idea of the extent to which it is dependent on color alchemy for the jewels it is buying. As long as the final retail purchase price of this jewelry reflects its true nature, disclosure can be cursory. But what dealers fear is price gouging based on an impression of the treated gem's beauty that is as false as its color.

Ballerina, Emiko, and Courtney (as well as myself) have nothing against selling dyed brown pearls. It may be too late to stop brand-name abuse because the term "chocolate pearls" is now the generic name for the entire category. However, something has got to be done to help the public distinguish bleached pearls which owe their color to a subtractive process and dyed brown pearls which owe their color to an additive one. "Proper disclosure would help solve this problem," says Ron Greenidge of Emiko Pearls.

So would wider availability of true chocolate pearls. But don't hold your breath. Ballerina is producing all it can. Sooner or later, perhaps, the Japanese will figure out Ballerina's process and the supply situation will change. For the time being, the supply chain of bona fide chocolate pearls will remain a small one.

Courtney sells around one third of her chocolate pearl jewelry to her biggest retail customer, jeweler Paul Johnson in Houston, Texas. Because she is a frequent presence in his store, often taking charge of its chocolate pearl sales, Johnson is in the enviable position of constantly reordering these very hot sellers. Often as high as $40,000 a strand, chocolate pearls are nearly as big a boom item in Houston as Hollywood. Such strands have pearls as large as 16mm, but, for the most part, sizes hover in a 10-12mm range.

Although bleaching usually reduces pearl luster, the jet-black Tahitian pearls chosen for bleaching usually have such shiny ball bearing-like surfaces that chocolate pearls still have the warm glow and signature color overtones of those associated with Polynesian cultured pearls. With earth tones now in vogue, chocolate pearls are becoming a wardrobe staple for women. "My customers already have their white and black strands," says Johnson. "Brown is what a growing number of them want next."

Courtney is finding the same is true among her celebrity clients. "Comedian Kathy Griffin got tired of borrowing strands from me," she says. "Now, she's bought one of her very own for everyday use and emergencies."