Day one, and every pearl today is metallic. I’ve spent about six hours in one wholesaler’s office today and found some stunning pearls, all metallic, every single one.

White AAA round metallics, colourful aaa black rounds which are, of course, anything but black (gold, pink, green, blue, aubergine) as well as drips and buttons for earrings: plus some weird shapes which will be…I have no idea!

The first general market news is that small pearls have shot up in price due to a production emphasis on bigger and bigger pearls.

There seem to be a few more natural colours pearls around, although this wholesaler still hadn’t got any big half drilled drops and the big buttons were mostly orangy peach (pass). Many of the white pearls ae creamier in colour than before – noticeably so. And I found some pretty nominally white strands where the pearls were just a slightly different shade. Really pretty. Plus some weird shapes which I will…I have no idea what I will do with them at the moment but they are mirror metallic natural colours. What’s not to take home?

Metallic freshwater freeform pearls – amazing depth of colour and shine.

I had a list, and occasionally I remembered it and got some of the pearls on the list, but for much of the time I kept finding great pearls, and who can resist great pearls? So this was my day one basket.

The day one basket of pearl purchases