I try to wear traditional pearl strands but their symmetry and perfection never quite match my insides. And yet here we are: This pearl stopped me—irregular, iridescent, kind of a punk rock pearl. It’s actually called a “fireball”. That’s the thing about the loving baroques: the imperfection is the point. An oyster spent years wrapping an irritant in luminous layers of nacre, and what emerged was this thoroughly unique, human torso of a precious object that looks positively Rubenesque. The ancients believed pearls embodied wisdom and protection, which tracks—something this extraordinarily beautiful had to fight to exist. Hand pulled 22k wire wrapped as a little maze of gold at the bottom cradles this pendant in all its glory.