Paspaley’s New Blushing Cicada Series is an Ode to The Kimberley
It’s September in Australia’s rugged North West. After months of clear skies and endless sunshine, the air feels hotter and somehow heavier. Cicadas have tunnelled up through the red earth to begin their distinctive chorus. As if called home by that deafening trill, a small white ship appears on the horizon, its broad hull and utilitarian cranes the first clue of the precious cargo onboard. As the port at Darwin comes into view, the ship’s crew, who’ve been at sea for weeks, anticipate a comfy bed, a cold beer and reunions with family. For them, the annual pearl harvest is over. For the hundreds of lustrous organic gems they’ve plucked from the Curaçao-hued waters off the the Kimberley coast, the journey has only just begun.
These voluptuous Paspaley Australian South Sea Pearls are the rarest and most prized of their kind in the world and are only found in the waters along the Kimberley coast and northern Australia. Soon they’ll be fashioned into exquisite jewellery, destined for showcases across the globe.
In the past 90 years, spanning three generations and countless innovations, the Paspaley family has been at the forefront of Australia’s pearling industry. What began in the 1930s with one young man, his passion for natural pearls and a sole timber lugger, has become the premier producer of South Sea Pearls. Today, Paspaley is Australia’s premier luxury brand. “We’ve earned our reputation as the source of the world’s most beautiful pearls,” says chairman Nick Paspaley, whose late father, Nicholas Snr, an immigrant from the Greek island of Kastellorizo, charted his family’s course all those decades ago.
And what a remarkable voyage it’s been. When Nicholas Snr bought his first boat at the age of 19, pearl divers wore traditional diving dress with lead-weighted breast plates and boots, and heavy brass helmets. With air to the suits provided by a compressor, pearl diving was a life-or-death endeavour.
By the time Nick began working with his father in 1970, that first boat had become a fleet but they were still wooden pearling luggers “with pre-World War II technology”, remembers Nick, so no cabins, wheelhouse, electricity, running water, refrigeration, navigation aids (other than a compass) or life raft, just a dinghy to row ashore. And this in a region known for monumental tides and the capricious forces of nature. “Life was tough,” says Nick with understatement.
While the fleet has been improved, this time as sleek dive ships with modern conveniences, and the divers use safer contemporary equipment, one thing hasn’t changed: the mollusc that nurtures each Paspaley Pearl. It remains the Pinctada maxima oyster that Nicholas Snr risked life and limb to cultivate. “We’re blessed with the gift of this natural environment,” says Nick, “with the world’s most precious pearl oyster beds, a huge tidal flow rich in nutrients to feed the oysters and free of pollution so the oysters can thrive and grow their pearls.”
And what better way to highlight the timeless beauty of South Sea Pearls than to weave them into the story of a mystical creature and the natural cycles of the Kimberley?
In cultures around the world, the cicada is a symbol of transformation, rebirth and the changing of the seasons. In northern Australia, as the cicada’s vibrato soundtrack to the pre-monsoon season between October and December – known as “the build-up” – intensifies, Paspaley pays tribute to the legendary insect with the release of the Blushing Cicada series, eight handcrafted jewellery designs that join Paspaley’s original Cicada pieces, part of the Monsoon Collection.
Nowhere is the creature more elevated than in the new Blushing Cicada Pearl Collier, which features an exceptional pearl from the Paspaley family’s private reserve, as well as pink sapphires, opals and tourmaline, rubellite and rainbow moonstones, made even more luminous with white diamonds. The jewels and mother-of-pearl are expertly cut to fit the cicada’s latticework wings.
And while each of the Pearl Colliers is unique, they all have one captivating element in common: an artfully disguised gem button that delightfully opens and closes the cicada’s wings with a spring action, deftly capturing the insect in flight and at rest.
The Blushing Cicada Pearl Pendant, similar in style to the brand’s original Cicada designs, has wings that can be opened and closed by hand to reveal a magnificent pearl within. Blushing Cicada Earring Enhancers can be used with any ear clips and differ from the earlier Cicada range thanks to their colourful jewels. Blushing Cicada Stud Enhancers, made to wear with Paspaley’s keshi and cultured pearl stud earrings, are crafted from yellow-gold, with white diamonds and pink gemstones, evoking the romance of a Kimberley sunset, and Lacewing Cicada Stud Enhancers come in white- or yellow-gold with white diamonds. The new range also includes the Lacewing Cicada Clasp in yellow- or white-gold, the wings set with pear- and marquise-cut white diamonds with the body a sublime Paspaley Pearl.
The collection underscores a belief that this visionary family has held for generations: a Paspaley Pearl is more than a lustrous gem. It carries in its DNA a history of adventure and romance. It is the surging tides, the morning sun, the ancient red rocks, the brilliant blue sky, the aquamarine water and the ever-changing seasons. Now, thanks to the Blushing Cicada series, it also captures the rhythms of life in the mystical, magical Kimberley.
These new pieces may signify a glowing future but Nick says that the Paspaley brand owes everything to the past. “Nothing we do today would be possible without the pioneering efforts of my father,” he says.
“He did it the hard way and his legacy is something that I’m always aware of and will never forget.”
