From Sept. 16 to 22, members of the pearl trade flocked to Jewellery & Gem World Hong Kong to buy and sell pearls of all sizes and qualities, from Tahitian keshi to golden South Seas. There was just one problem according to jewelry editor Jennifer Heebner, who spent a week at the show: “There were no Chinese buyers,” she tells JCK.
It was a far cry from last year’s show, which saw pearl prices, especially on Tahitian pearls, spike like never before due to surging Chinese demand.
“A year ago this time, a Chinese influencer decided she was going to promote a movie by wearing Tahitian pearls every day for a month,” Heebner, the former executive director of the Cultured Pearl Association of America (and former JCK editor), says. “That caused Tahitian pearl prices to increase 300% in six months. Tahitian dealers were selling out for every grade, from the crap to the top-end stuff. Robert Wan canceled his auction because a single buyer bought up the whole sale.”
Heebner says that prices had stabilized by March, but she was eager to experience pearl mania for herself so she booked a ticket to Hong Kong to attend this year’s show.
“Usually, it’s three rows deep with Chinese buyers, but that did not happen,” she says. “The Chinese real estate crisis has trickled down into the pearl market. Also, the Chinese government has instituted anti–money laundering laws and they’ve had an impact on the amount of cash that Chinese dealers can accept. Buyers are not allowed to pay for as much with cash and that deterred some. Plus, there are new customs regulations and dealers told me some buyers were fearful that they wouldn’t get their inventory back. That’s a huge part of why they weren’t there.
“The aisles were empty. It was shocking to see,” she adds.
On the plus side, diminished demand from China has helped normalize prices on Tahitians as well as on South Sea pearls.
Buyers in the market for keshi pearls, however, may find things tough going. “Golden and white keshi were virtually nonexistent and if you found them, they were crazy expensive,” Heebner says. “Tahitian keshi you could find, but prices were up 50% over last year.”
Heebner declined to speculate on why keshi availability was so tight (could it be the long shadow of the pandemic, which disrupted perliculture around the world?) but she offered another equally disappointing takeaway for American buyers:
“The Japanese have been producing less akoyas over the past few years,” she says. “There are fewer farmers now because it’s not a consistent way to make a living. The top end stuff is super hard to find and really expensive. A fine traditional akoya strand is going to be three times more expensive than it was a year ago.”
And despite the cooling Chinese market, buyers from mainland China still appear to hold sway with dealers, Heebner says: “American buyers are not the priority anymore.”
For designers who’ve helped usher in a pearl renaissance fueled by risk-taking designs, that may be hard to believe, but from Heebner’s point of view, retailers have yet to catch on.
“Obviously, pearls have been hot with designers, but a smaller amount of retailers are selling those designer lines,” she says. “Nobody sells Melanie Georgacopoulos in this country except a couple galleries. People don’t understand those products. They get editorial play, which is great for the category. But the bulk of retailers still don’t understand pearls, even though they have potential for great margins.”
Top: Bow Drop earrings in 18k gold with Tahitian pearls, $1,845; Aurelia Demark
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