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Price: AU$ 287 (free global shipping)
This necklace is, like all of our other pieces, a one-off design, intended for a woman that appreciates individuality and commitment to quality. The beads for this substantial necklace have been collected all over the world and put together to create a piece of strong contrast. The piece contains amongst other these semi-precious beads:
- The focal points of this necklace are five spines of a Slate Pencil Sea Urchin, which we purchased on a small market in Madang Province in Papua New Guinea. Whilst almost all sea Urchins have long sharp and venomous spines this species has in changed tactics to produce thick blunt spines. Each spine (when not totally bleached after long exposure on a beach) has a beautiful ring pattern, giving it a unique “signature”.
- Amethyst nuggets from Egypt. Amethyst is the purple variety of quartz with an impurity of iron, which gives it’s the eye-catching purple colour. Amethyst has been an extravagance in violet for many thousands of years, coveted by princes both ecclesiastical and secular. In popular belief, the amethyst offers protection against drunkenness – for the Greek words ‘amethystos’ means ‘not intoxicated’ in translation.
- Although the ore for Turquoise (stabilized and dyed orange/ purple teeth) comes from California, these beads have been sourced from China. Owing to a culture of thousands of years of bead making, some of the world’s best lapidaries are still found in China. Chemically speaking, these stunning beads are turquoise stone – minus the copper components – and as such they appear white, rather than bluish green. While the world knows and trades these stones as stabilized & dyed Turquoise, these semi-precious beads are technically speaking made from Howlite. Howlite is characterized by eye-catching contrasting charcoal veins, and because it is very porous, it takes up dye easily to look lustrous in its own right.
- Button Pearls, produced by the freshwater triangle mussel (Hyriopsis cumingii) near Shanghai, China. The beads are produced by grafting tissue of foreign mussels into the triangle mussel, which responds to this intrusion of foreign protein by producing the lustrous nacre bead.
- Purple freeform slabs of Variscite, also known as Imperial Jasper from Brazil
- Two different types of agate are part of this necklace: faceted Agate (purple balls), and weathered Agate (pink balls) from Brazil.
- Concentric squares made of iridescent Mother of Pearl from Mollusk Aquaculture in China. Mother of pearl consists of hard but brittle aragonite and is supplemented by the mollusks with an organic material similar to silk. The result is the strong, flexible material which can withstand hard use and which looks simply stunning.
- Sterling silver plated and Tibetan silver beads sourced from South Korea
