Tasaki pearls: a journey to Japan

Tasaki’s Akoya pearls are shaped by the sea and harvested according to decades old traditions

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(Image credit: hiroaki horiguchi)

There are many souvenirs that one can obtain to mark a trip to Japan. Possible keepsakes include the masu, a small square box made from fragrant cedar or Hinoki wood and used to serve saké; or folded sensu paper fans, or a tin of Hato Sabure – biscuits baked in the shape of a dove. Following a trip to Kujukushima – an archipelago of 208 small islands in Nagasaki’s Saikai National (marine) Park – I returned with an altogether different memento: a loose, milky white Akoya pearl, discovered hidden inside an oyster just a few hours earlier.

It is here, by the northwest coast of Japan’s third largest island, Kyushu, that Shunsaku Tasaki began farming pearls in 1933. Tasaki officially set up his eponymous business in 1954; today, the luxury brand operates three pearl farms – two in Japan, one installed on a sequestered Myanmar island – in addition to a Kobe design and production hub and a sprawling Ginza, Tokyo flagship boutique. “When learning about the history of Tasaki and its DNA, I realised that pearl farms are the heart of this company,” says Toshikazu Tajima, who joined the enterprise as CEO in 2009, following roles with the Japanese arms of fashion houses Christian Dior and Fendi. “Like a human heart supplying oxygen to the body, at Tasaki the pearl farms supply new ideas and materials.”

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