Sautoir necklace freshwater pearls

A piece of jewelry with a history. At the beginning of the 20th century, women gradually stopped wearing their pearl jewelry close to the neck. Long chains better matched the flowing cut of the new dresses. The new necklaces reached down to the navel and fell loosely. In the 1920s, the sautoir necklace was made popular by no other than Coco Chanel. She wore it in a classical style with the little black dress as a generous, loose falling necklace, slung around the neck three times and close to the neck – or hanging over a wide opening at the back. Our necklace has a length of more than one meter with about 200 cultured freshwater pearls strung together. The sautoir necklace is made in Pforzheim, Germany.

In 1921 Kokichi Mikimoto developed a modern cultivation process for saltwater pearls and acquired important experience for the cultivation of the Akoya pearl. This new technique was of benefit for Japan and the north-west Pacific region, and in Oceania harvesting cultured pearls replaced the dangerous pearl diving. We chose from the large variety of pearls pearl jewelry that is typical for the different types of pearls and shows the almost perfect rounding of the Akoya pearls, the bright, snow-white luster of the comparatively small freshwater pearls, and the grandeur of the Tahiti cultured pearl.