Emily Blunt’s Mikimoto pearls
Her stylist says they knew the moment they saw the choker. What made it that pearl and not another one is a thing you can check in a photograph.
Wearing: The Devil Wears Prada 2 premiere in New York — A Mikimoto Rosés Akoya pearl choker from the Les Pétales Place Vendôme collection
For the New York premiere of The Devil Wears Prada 2, Emily Blunt wore Schiaparelli couture and a Mikimoto Akoya pearl choker from the house's Les Pétales Place Vendôme collection. Her longtime stylist, Jessica Paster, told Marie Claire that the two of them knew immediately when they saw it.
Pearls are the one category where the expensive thing and the cheap thing are distinguishable at a glance — and, unusually, where you can tell which is which without any expertise at all. It comes down to one property, and it is not size.
Lustre is the whole thing. Lustre is how sharply a pearl reflects what is around it, and it comes from the thickness and quality of the nacre — the layers the oyster deposits. On a good pearl you can see a distinct, almost mirror-like reflection of the light source, with a sharp edge to it. On a poor one the reflection is soft and milky, like a snooker ball. Look at any pearl photograph and find the highlight: if it has a crisp edge, the nacre is thick. That single check tells you more than the price does.
Which means the sensible way to buy pearls is small and brilliant rather than large and dull. A modest strand with real lustre reads as good jewellery. A big chalky one reads as plastic, and the extra size makes it worse rather than better, because there is more dull surface to see.
One practical note. Pearls are porous and perfume, hairspray and even sweat etch the surface permanently. On last, off first, wiped with a soft cloth. It is a small habit and it is the difference between a strand that lasts thirty years and one that goes cloudy in two.
What transfers
Buy pearls on lustre, never on size. Find the reflected highlight in the photograph: a crisp, mirror-sharp edge means thick nacre and a pearl that will look expensive at any diameter, while a soft milky highlight means it will read as plastic however big it is. Small and brilliant beats large and chalky, every time.
