Mikimoto Jewelry

Mikimoto Took Cultured Pearls All Over The World

Mikimoto Kokichi may not have been the first person to create cultured pearls – that achievement is commonly credited to British biologist William Saville-Kent. Still, once Tokichi Nishikawa imported it to Japan a century ago, his wife’s father, Mikimoto Kokichi, began to apply the technology.

In the years that followed, Kokichi’s company Mikimoto laid the foundation for commercial pearl production, earning many awards in his native land. Mikimoto is also ranked as one of the world’s top luxury brands and is called a pillar of the Japanese economy. There is even an island in Japan’s Mie Prefecture named after the man and his legacy.

Interestingly, in his own efforts to create an industrial process that would mimic natural pearl formation, he figured out how to form hemispherical pearls, as early as 1897.

Commercially viable harvests of fully spherical pearls did not follow until the 1920s. In 1935, Mikimoto pushed pearl exports into Europe and the United States, and later increased their perceived value by publicly burning a batch of lower-quality pearls, so that consumers would ascribe to him the highest standards. Later, Mikimoto also established a pharmaceutical firm, manufacturing beauty products based on pearl calcium.

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