Starfish, Emeralds, and Pearls: A Studio Story in 18K Gold

Friends, settle in for a small studio story. Some pieces I make because a customer asks. Some pieces I make because the math says I should. And some pieces — the best ones, frankly — I make because a particular combination of stones lands on my bench and refuses to leave until I figure out what it wants to be. The Starfish Earrings are firmly in the third category.

The Cast of Characters

Three protagonists, all bossy:

• Two Colombian emeralds. Vivid green, faintly inclusion-storied, totaling about three carats. The kind of emerald color that turns a room.
• Two South Sea pearl drops. Larger pearls, slightly baroque, with the warm satiny luster only Pinctada maxima oysters seem to manage.
• An 18K yellow gold starfish. Five arms, hand-textured, bridging the emeralds at the ear and the pearls at the swing.

If you'd given me those three things on a quiet Tuesday and asked me to put them in the same earring, I might have hesitated. Three loud personalities in one design is a recipe for visual shouting. But sometimes the stones decide.

Enter the Starfish

The breakthrough was the gold figure. A starfish is, structurally, a generous shape — five arms means the eye has somewhere to land at every angle, and the soft texture of an 18K hand-finished surface absorbs the visual weight of the emerald and lets the pearl swing freely below. The starfish is the diplomat. It introduces the green to the cream and convinces them to behave.

And it gave the piece a small, charming narrative. Emeralds out of the rainforest. Pearls out of the ocean. Starfish at the join. You can almost imagine the entire earring as a postcard from a coastline I'd like to visit.

Katura's Approach

18K is doing the heaviest lifting here. I almost never make pearl-and-emerald drops in 14K — the slightly cooler color of 14K yellow makes the emeralds skew bluer and the pearls skew chalkier. 18K, with its richer yellow, warms both. It's expensive, yes, but in this design it is non-negotiable. Cheaper metal would have been a different (and worse) earring.

A Word on Wearing Loud Earrings

People sometimes look at a piece like this and say I'd never have anywhere to wear that. Friends, I am here to gently disagree. Maximalist earrings are made for normal life — they elevate the easiest, simplest outfit and stop being "too much" the moment you stop matching them. A white linen shirt. A navy sweater. A black dinner dress. The earring becomes the entire jewelry decision and you walk out the door in less than five minutes.

Where I'd actually avoid these: any environment with a tightly wrapped scarf. South Sea pearls do not love being abraded against silk all evening. Skip the scarf, or wear a different earring with the scarf, or — best — wear the scarf around your bag handles like an Italian.

A Tiny Maintenance Sermon

Pearls are organic. They love the oils on your skin. They despise perfume, hairspray, sunscreen, and anything alcohol-based. The rule, written in needlepoint in every pearl-merchant's office: last on, first off. Put the earrings on after your perfume has dried. Take them off before you wash your face. A soft cloth wipe-down before they go back in the box is plenty.

Emeralds, as discussed in another essay, want to avoid ultrasonic cleaning and steamers. Soap, water, soft toothbrush. The starfish itself? 18K gold, hand-textured — it's nearly indestructible. Treat the gold like the responsible adult it is.

Who These Earrings Are For

I'll tell you who I picture when I make a piece like this. She has good books on her nightstand. She has been to one or two slightly improbable places — Cartagena, maybe, or Lamu, or a small Greek island whose name I can never remember. She owns one truly excellent caftan. She is not afraid of a long earring. She knows, in some deep way, that the point of jewelry is not to be quiet.

If that's you, friends, this earring is going to find a permanent home in the rotation. And if that's not quite you yet — that's fine, too. Sometimes a pair of starfish earrings is the start of becoming her.

A very colorful spring to all of you.

— Katura