Natural pearl french website

[Isi]

As Christmas is coming soon, and we all need to dream a bit, I wish to propose you this link towards this beautiful website :

http://www.claudie-ple.fr

Claudie Pl? is a very nice person, the last one in Paris dealing only in natural pearls, being able to repair them, after her father. She buys her pearls herself in India and in the Red Sea area, and many reputable jewellers in Place Vend?me are her clients. She is not a noisy person, remains very humble and very discreet about her trade. More than that, she is the person who shares her passion and made me know, understand, and fall in love with the refinement and understated beauty of natural pearls.

Enjoy !

 

[Ramona]

Stunning. I love the ring on the home page.

 

[Pearlgully]

Although the jewelry under the "Collections" catagory is nice, many of the pearls do not appear to me to be natural. To me, they look to be cultured freshwater pearls.



Gail

 

[KAC]

x2 - if some of those pieces were natural the prices must be astronomical

 

[Isi]

Well, these are definitely not FWP, I can assure you. Claudie is very famous in high jewellery for her natural pearls (providing such jewellers as JAR, for instance). And yes, the prices are astronomical ! Only for eye's pleasure... which is already much.

 

[pattye]

Lovely designs! I think perhaps CliClasp provided a link to her collection some time back, always great to revisit, inspiring to say the least-----------Certainly agree that some of the pink and purple mimic freshwater colors--so not certain what kind of pearls she is using there.

I have loved jade for a very long time, so its fun to see it combined with pearls----thank you, Isi-------

 

[Isi]

At the turn of the XXth century, there used to be about 300 natural pearls dealers rue La Fayette in Paris.
Nowadays of these 300 dealers only one remains ; the firm Gourdji, held by Claudie after her father and grandfather.
She is the last one of her kind, entirely dedicated to natural pearl trading. She has never, as far as I know, used or sold any cultured pearl, be it nucleated or non nucleated.
She is very wary about non nucleated pearls - FW and Keshi - and as soon as she has a doubt, she goes through a lab, and discards them if they are not sure to be natural.
With years she has developed a certain passion for coloured natural pearls. Of course I don't know the secrets or her trade - she has many of them - but I know for sure that even the most coloured of her pearls are natural. She would just have no interest in selling cultured pearls, considering the clients she supplies...
If some day you come in Paris, don't hesitate in taking an appointment with Claudie Pl?. Her workshop is quite interesting to visit - peeling tools and lotions, and so on - and at the end of the day you will be convinced that all of her pearls are natural.
I feel lucky that when I was a student in gemmology Claudie taught in our school about natural pearls (identification, estimation...) - along with other professionals in cultured pearls. The variety of natural pearls she showed us at that time was simply fascinating.
Two years ago, we organized a meeting between her and Elizabeth Strack : for sure these two had a lot to tell to each other !

 

[Caitlin]

OK, I concede, but why go to all the trouble to produce something that looks like Freshwaters? The necklace at the top of the page looks remarkably like my potpourri necklace in my avatar.....

 

[pattye]

Isi,

You are certainly fortunate to have first hand experience with Ms. Ple. She sounds like a very fine person.

We are a questioning and sometimes irreverent group here with many years of experience looking at many types of pearls, both in person and in photos, so please do not take offense. A number of our members have extensive experience with natural pearls, as you will find with further reading.

Unfortunately, I will probably not ever be visiting Paris, but the forum is truly a wonderful way to travel the pearl world-------

 

[Isi]

Sure Caitlin. I agree, they look alike on the screen pictures (at least some of them).
So you ask, why bother ?
I try to guess : several reasons :
The natural ones sell for a higher price... to a certain type of clients... who want only the best of best and can afford it !
A reputation to save, and no concession whatever to cultured pearls... It is why Claudie's business still works despite the small size of her firm: she suffers from no competition, dealing with products that she is the only one to be able to find (at least in France !).
And maybe, if you saw these pearls for real, you might find that they have a definite something different, more refined and more subtle than FW.
Again, if some day you have this opportunity to meet Claudie and her pearls, don't loose it : it's worth it.
Pattye, no problem : I don't wish to convince anybody. I just feel fortunate that we still have a Claudie within reach, and I just wanted to share a bit of it with you (precisely because I am aware that people on this forum are high-level connoisseurs !). As far as I know Claudie is not training anybody else in her trade, so, when she stops, the last one will be gone.

 

[Caitlin]

I see. She appeals to the leisure class- conspicuous consumption and all that. Even though I grew up with Bahraini pearls, I am not fond of garish, which some of her pieces certainly are. I do like the pearl bracelets sewn on flat mesh in the ciel section. I just saw a mesh rope in sterling somewhere yesterday. It is an appealing idea to sew some pretty CFWP on it. So she is an inspiration- even to me!

As naturals are beyond my reach at the moment, I do enjoy and love working with FW pearls-they are so versatile! And to most non-pro observers, good FW pieces are stunning.

 

[KAC]

I agree, many of those pieces look strikingly similar to fw pearls, so much so that I have a tough time believing they are not. Can you give us an idea of what one of her pieces costs? I'm thinking they must be very expensive if true naturals, also do they come with any sort of verification that they are natural?

Can I also ask Isi what your connection to the business is? Are you a customer, employee, friend, relative, window shopper?

 

[Ramona]

She has a definition of what a "natural pearl" is on her web site ( pearle fine -> L?gislation), so she would define her pearls as naturals. I am more inclined to cultured pearls, but then tastes are different.

 

[Lagoon Island Pearls]

Here is a translation from her website.

Official Gazette: Order No. 2002-65 of January 14, 2002 on trade in gemstones and pearls.

The terms "pearl" or "fine pearl" are reserved for natural concretions which are secreted accidentally, without any human intervention, within wild shellfish.

The term "cultured pearls", are pearls formed in a living mollusc which is artificially induced by human intervention, by any means whatsoever.

The term "imitation pearls" are for pearls wholly or partly made by man, copying the look, color and effect of natural or cultured pearls, but not having their physical or chemical properties or crystal structure, although natural materials were used.

By this standard, her use of the term "fine pearls" would suggest naturals. While I have never beheld her creations, nor have I read any documentation, I am skeptical of the math.

Producing near-matched sets from natural pearls is exceedingly difficult. With any natural pearl collection (especially from various sources), the percentages are usually single digits or even a fraction of 1%.

Given the number her creations, including ones purchased previously, she would have had to sort through hundreds of thousands of natural pearls.

The annual production of that kind of volume, simply does not exist.

 

[Isi]

In our legislation, actually "pearl" alone is supposed to mean "natural pearl". But there are many abuses and confusions ; in most shops selling cultured pearls, and in the current language, "pearl" stands in people's mind for "cultured pearls". So we always use the old term "perle fine" instead of "pearl" alone to make sure we speak of the right thing.

I think Claudie mostly uses antique lots of pearls. She buys old strands and old jewellery, she restores many of them. She travels a lot to India and Barhain too. And then she makes new designs from old stuff to which she gives a new life. But of course she can also keep an old necklace in its original look ; she restrings, cleans, can add or remove pearls to make it look better.

There is a very moving story she told me once. The real story of an old man who offered a natural pearl necklace from Gourdji to her granddaughter for her first communion. This used to be very classical in the bygone times. Each year the necklace grew by two, four or six pearls, and when the young girl came of marrying age, the necklace had some value and became part of the dowry. So, this grandfather was doing for her granddaughter what was the tradition in his family. Each year, for her birthday, the necklace grew by two pearls : a new bigger center, and a shoulder one similar in size to the previous center. Well, the modern young girl, who knew nothing about pearls, and saw cultured ones in any shop window, thought very little of her necklace, and probably found his grandfather rather mean... One day, the grandfather died. The girl, out of respect for him, wanted to continue his fancy. She went to Gourdji's for the first time... Received from Claudie a bit of education about natural pearls... Fully understood the value of her necklace, and what her grandfather had been doing for her ! And burst into tears in Claudie's office.

 

[Caitlin]

I was thinking if she collects old pearls, that some are from freshwater sources, like the River Tay in Britain. They do not fish for pearls there any more, because the stock was decimated by the early 20th century, but old freshwaters still come up for sale. That would explain the colors. They are freshwaters, but antique ones, mixed with saltwater pearls old and new.

We are aware of the Rosenthal battle for calling only natural pearls "pearls" and all others must have "cultured" in their ads. In fact we once had a member who claimed she had the very necklace Rosenthal took into court and it was a very early tissue nucleated necklace by Mikimoto. If you believe that story, I have a Nigerian with money just waiting to give it to you.......

 

[Isi]

You may be right Caitlin. And of course, Claudie may still have in her safes some of the stocks of her grandfather, which may have included old european natural fresh water pearls.
Okay, I promise, next time I see her, I'll ask her what type of molluscs gave her couloured pearls. I'll try to get detailed answers and I'll certainly keep you informed.

 

[Caitlin]

Absolutely! Thanks