Growing up, a pearl necklace symbolised a rite of passage, worn at life’s most important moments, often passed from one generation to the next. I still remember my grandmother’s perfectly uniform strands, and her collection of eclectic baroque pearls, which I am increasingly seeing around the necks of all the best-dressed women in Milan. Unlike traditional gemstones, prized for their symmetry and polish, there’s something magnetic about the amorphous, rough-hewn qualities of the baroque breed. Less a jewel, more a pre-historic relic, their resurgence, I think, speaks to the idea that imperfection is more compelling than order and neatness.
It’s no coincidence that two of my favourite pieces—a single Alighieri earring from my husband, and a necklace from my aunt—both feature these toothy forms. I was gifted that particular necklace during a time in the 2000s when the trend was for flawless pearls—worn with white T-shirts and denim, in ironic Lagerfeld style—and it was love at first sight. The pearls weren’t perfect, but they had character, and I enjoyed how they defied typical prim and proper clichés. Then along came Alexander McQueen, Erdem and Simone Rocha, who were the first contemporary designers to use baroque pearls on the catwalk, bringing an edge to clean, feminine looks between the years of 2018 and 2019.
You can imagine my delight, then, on seeing Bottega Veneta and Prada’s spring/summer 2025 collections, which featured necklaces with clusters of moss-green baroque pearls like plump olives, and emerging labels like Copine Jewellery and Pearl Octopuss.y’s playful placements of jagged pearls. This isn’t totally novel, of course. Some of my favourite design pieces date back to the Renaissance, when jewellers were using baroque pearls to create all sorts of sculptures of fantastical animals. Dipped in gold and colourful enamel, the pearl’s irregular shape wasn’t seen as an imperfection, but a source of inspiration around what it could, eventually, become. I hope that mindset is back.
With that, here’s a fistful of the best baroque pearl jewels to inspire, and shop.
This article was originally published on British Vogue.
