Pearls Get Sunburnt In America

NZ Truth, Issue 1229, 20 June 1929, Page 20

Pearls Get Sunburnt In America

«. A very pretty and charming American passing through the capital searched m vain endeavor to buy sunburnt pearls. Withall our jewellery stores cluttering up the thoroughfares, not one of them had heard of this particular fad.

QUR surf-sirens, warmly brown, ■ should welcome all accessories to her type. Sun -tan pearls are by far the most becoming for the, average neck. Creamy white pearl 3 may look lovely on, an alabaster neck, but this type of neck is so rare, and otherwise they make an unkind contrast to the smart woman. Sun-tan and brown ; pearls are,, becoming to all necks, and arer. particularly chic worn with white satin, low V-backed evening frocks and 1 sunburnt stockings. Pull yourselves together. A^endors of the bruramy, and read about the overseas fads, which so soon become our own. , A San Franciscan store dedicated to the sale of this sort of semi-precious stuff, pays the equivalent of ,£3OO rent per week for one tiny window. Their sets of marvellous copies of old French paste — the most delicate and .beautiful of all the examples of jewel -designing — cost m the region of £8 and look worth £80. ' It is possible to buy m Paris rare antique paste ornaments almost as intrinsically valuable as the real diar mond-and-platinum stuff-." while .romance'and association of ideas have rendered them infinitely more desirable.

A well-known book is based on the true story of a rich Englishman, resident m Paris, and an internationally famous Russian "beauty, Toni, avaricious of jewels. He, knowing her weakness, gives hei a marvellous old paste pendant, rare and lovely. "' She thinks that she has been trickec on finding that the jewels with whicl it is set are not real, and flings it away and leaSes him, accusing him of meanness. In reality, the pendant m its rarity and beauty has far ' greatei monetary value than the same desigr m precious stones would have had. It is commonly supposed that the marvellous family jewels, handed dowr from generation to generation of th* aristocracy, are kept safely put awaj m the vaults of the great banks, anc copies substituted. Whether this i: so or not, we cannot say, never having consorted with duchesses. ' Anyway, Cleopatra still holds the palm for the most expensive bedpill, the pearl she so languidly dissolved m vinegar and drank to impress her lover, being probably w r orth a cool thousand or two. How the gentleman must have swooned if he was possessed of ah*> business instinct!