They can be black, white or even fuschia coloured but whether natural or cultured, pearls are making a comeback. You only have to walk down the high street to see rack upon rack of chokers, bracelets and strings of beads which go right down to the navel.
Whether you wear cheap plastic pearls in bubble-gum pink or a necklace of the real thing costing half a million pounds or more, pearls can look funky as well as frumpy.
Rachel Ellison asks Scilla Speet, jewellery historian and course director at Central St Martins College, Hadley Freeman of The Guardian, and pearl expert and designer Chrissy Douglas why pearls are back.
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