DESIGN

Kokontozai: KASHIYUKA’s Shop of Japanese Arts and Crafts — Pearl Necklace

『カーサブルータス』2024年10月号より

October 8, 2024 | Design | KASHIYUKA’s Shop of Japanese Arts and Crafts | photo_Keisuke Fukamizu hair & make-up_Masako Osuga editor_Masae Wako translation_ Mika Yoshida & David G. Imber

Searching all of Japan for handcrafted items that express its heart and soul, our proprietor, KASHIYUKA, presents things that bring a bit of luxury to everyday life. She travels this time to Iseshima in Mie prefecture, Japan’s foremost pearl-producing region, where she met artisans creating with pearls they took from cultivation to finished product.

Beneath gentle waves, the culture beds of Masakijima in Ago Bay, Iseshima, Mie prefecture. We witness the opening of Akoya oysters, and the removal of their pearls. “One oyster produces just a single pearl, cultivated with great care over a long time. It’s truly precious," says our shopkeeper KASHIYUKA.

From bygone days, pearls have always been close to us, we feel a familiarity, an attachment to them. I wanted to find out how they attained their lustrous whiteness, and visited Ago Bay in Iseshima, Mie prefecture, one of Japan’s leading pearl-producing areas.

“Akoya pearls have excellent, sparkling translucency,” says Mr. Yamamoto Kota, fifth-generation head of Yashima Shinju. The producer is one of the few in Japan taking on the entire process of pearl production from cultivation to extraction, selection, processing, and sales. I first took a ferry to the company’s culture beds in Masaki Island’s Ago Bay. I was welcomed by Mr. Sato Tamaki, who specializes in cultivation.

Purchase No. 77 【Pearl Necklace】Pearls from Ago Bay with a Once-in-a-Lifetime Radiance.

“The ‘nucleus’ that will be the basis of the pearl and a piece of tissue called the mantle are implanted into the pearl oyster, and then it is carefully nurtured in the sea. The oyster develops a pearl sac, and starts developing layers of nacre about the nucleus. When the temperature of the seawater begins to fall, the nacreous surface layer of the pearl thins, widens, hardens, and tightens, causing the luster to emerge,” says Mr. Sato, opening oysters one by one as they are pulled from the sea. They come in a variety of forms, some undersized, some greyish. It’s not uncommon for an oyster to contain no pearl at all, something you can’t know until you open it.