From the December 2020 Issue of #thisispearl digital magazine

For 63 years, the CPAA has been championing the stunning, exotic, and often misunderstood pearl and the people behind the product. During that time, the association has implemented various initiatives, including Pearls As One (PAO) education and the International Pearl Design Competition, to better promote the pearl and appreciation for it. Now CPAA brings you one more: #thisispearl, a bimonthly digital magazine.

#thisispearl is the CPAA’s custom hashtag developed three years ago upon my arrival at the association. Its purpose? To drive more awareness of the diversity of pearl jewels and kick aside stodgy perceptions because pearls are anything but plain. #thisispearl challenges dated ideas about the category and casts a spotlight on the fresh, now, and forward thinking. 

Still life image by Ted Morrison, Pearls from Eliko, Baggins, and Imperial Pearl.

Meanwhile, the mailing list of #thisispearl is in a category of its own. Some 86,000 pearl lovers are subscribed to the CPAA’s Shells newsletter, the delivery vehicle for #thisispearl. That list has a healthy base of jewelry store owners and their staffers as well as CPAA’s impressive PAO roster of students, the bulk of whom are based in the U.S. This makes our subscriber list uniquely niche (pearl lovers!) and the most powerful reach in all of the jewelry industry.

The pages of this digital publication will transport you to exotic destinations where pearls grow, introduce you to key players and little-known champions of pearls, drive home the status of pearls in the fashion and design world, and inspire awe and offer a peek at the process of pearl farming, which is truly a partnership between man and nature. We hope you enjoy reading about the hard-to-describe magic that is the pearl industry. Pearl people are often warm and empathetic, and that may have to do with the farming process and residual effects on others in the chain of sale. Beautiful pearls are a gift to man when oysters are well cared for; #thisispearl is CPAA’s gift to our community of pearl lovers.

Jennifer Heebner is the executive director of the CPAA and the editorial director of JenniferHeebner.com.

This article is from the Dec. 2020 issue of #thisispearl.