Jewel of the Sea

Coveted for their quality and admired around the globe for their simple perfection, the Australian South Sea pearl, fruit of the Pinctada maxima oyster, is acknowledged as the best in the world. Paspaley Pearls, a company likewise born in the rugged north west of the country, is acknowledged as the benchmark in the industry and for over 80 years, has set the standard for South Sea pearls, pioneering the seeding and harvesting techniques that mark them as the most sought after in the world today.

In the process, Paspaley has become a sprawling global business, the romance and indeed glamour of the product becoming intertwined with the name, to the point where the two have become inseparable.

Harvested by divers from the wild, dangerous waters of Australia’s remote north western coast – Paspaley is the only company to still dive for wild oysters – producing the finest South Sea pearls is a challenging business and those challenges continue long after the pearls are removed from their watery home. But such is the allure of these jewels of the sea that neither global financial contractions nor inferior imports coming onto the market can dull their lustre.

The global financial market was certainly tough on the fine pearl market both in Australia and internationally says Executive Director of the Paspaley Group and third generation family member, James Paspaley (pictured below).

“The Australian industry has been through a tumultuous time through the GFC (Global Financial Crisis),” says Paspaley from the company’s Darwin head office.

“I think we (Paspaley) are better known in Australia as a retail jeweller, and probably less well known for the volume of goods that are sold into the wholesale market and the international jewellery market. But that’s ultimately what the Australian industry relies on …Australian pearls end up on those larger markets of Asia, Europe and the USA.

So when those markets reacted to market drivers, that’s what our product and wholesale sales had to react to,” he says.

But a business founded in the 1930s by James’ grandfather, Nicholas Paspaley MBE, that relies so heavily on the whims of the sea has weathered its share of storms in the past. 

“In the last 10 years one of the big changes I think all luxury goods have faced is the high demand from China. As they understand the quality of a good they gravitate towards it and consume it. The same has been the experience of other luxury goods such as high quality red wine, high quality food goods and we have experienced the same with South Sea pearls,” Paspaley says.

“As Europe declined in 2009, 2010, Chinese demand was still coming on line so that was a nice counterbalance to global changes.”

But while the international market accounts for the lion’s share of fine South Sea pearls, Australians, says James Paspaley, are acutely aware of the value of this ‘home grown’ gem and are amongst its greatest consumers.

“We’re a fairly parochial bunch,” says Paspaley of the Australian market. “Australians like to celebrate the things that we do well and in my opinion have a very good understanding of fine South Sea pearls … so that the ratio at which Australians consume pearls is higher than the rest of the world.”

But another threat has emerged to challenge the fine pearl industry – that of large quantities of inferior farmed pearls from Indonesia, China and The Philippines coming onto the market. The problem says James Paspaley is not so much the existence of these pearls, as the confusion they can cause.

“It would be an almost negligent position to take just to say that people who know the difference will understand. Consumers today are intelligent and informed, not that they weren’t in the past, but purchasing behaviour has certainly changed and the average person today when they’re making a decent purchase does quite a lot of research … they have access to the world’s data and they really want to be informed about the important decisions they make.”

When people are in the market for a diamond, says Paspaley, the understanding is that it is a naturally occurring product, produced over thousands of years and mined from the ground. They’re aware of the existence of manufactured diamonds and cubic zirconias for example, but they know that a diamond is a different thing.

But the label ‘pearl’ doesn’t begin to tell the whole story says Paspaley:

“Is it a Chinese fresh water pearl produced in its thousands of tonnes in a pond in China somewhere? Or is this a natural pearl, found by a diver, out of a shell, off the Western Australian coastline which is infinitesimally rare? Or is it an Australian South Sea cultured pearl, that is the closest thing that you can get to that natural pearl that isn’t a million dollars.

“In gemstones, people just accept that as automatic. You say diamond, that’s what you get. The reality is that there’s a market for each product at each level. The lack of acute differentiation allows wriggle room for less scrupulous traders to pass one off as the other.”

The solution according to Paspaley is ongoing education, and to that end, partnerships such as the one with Audi Hamilton Island Race Week allow the perfect environment in which to spread the message.

“Audi Hamilton Island Race Week is one of those events that has that wonderfully intimate environment. You have a period of time where likeminded people, usually with a love of the sea and Australia, go and stay in one place for an extended period of time and that allows the chance to talk about this luxury product in that luxury context and that works perfectly for Paspaley.”

But while Paspaley Pearls will again be an integral part of AHIRW, James Paspaley will not be enjoying the atmosphere on island. Rather he will be tending to the company’s myriad other business enterprises that have grown out of the pearling business.

These include significant property and agricultural businesses as well as a major aviation arm and a fleet of vessels that has been quoted as being larger than the Australian Navy. To that Paspaley just laughs, saying:

“I have no idea how many boats the Australian Navy has, but I’d hope that it has more large vessels than we do. We have a fleet of vessels under 20 metres, and they’re a very useful tool in our industry.”

And that industry, despite the diversification will continue to centre on those perfectly formed jewels of the sea if James Paspaley has anything to do with it.

“Although we do now have significant property assets, agricultural or aviation interests, Paspaley is first and foremost a pearling family and a pearling company.”