Office Outfit - navy silk shirt and silver pink pearl

Necklaces can serve many purposes, depending on colour, size, and material.
Here the pearl acts as a step from the very dark navy shirt to my paler skin, making the contrast less dramatic. Office outfits need to keep that balance between adding contrast to add interest, without tipping over into clashing and becoming distracting.

Necklaces at the office.

As I wrote in my last post on officewear, conservative clothing is not supposed to draw attention to your body, or distract people's attention from your work. While bright patterns, long flowing fabrics, and loud (literally and figuratively) accessories are great for expressing yourself on your own time, they are best worn away from the office.

In most of the western business world a suit is still the outfit of choice, made in a dull fabric, in a quiet colour, cut to follow but not draw attention to the body's lines. Drawing heavily on the dandy menswear tradition rather than the peacock one, the men's business suit is designed to be visually formal, often in dark colours to imply authority, with a general lack of pattern, contrast, or texture.

Although this can be very confining in some ways, it does allow individualism in the small details. Menswear blogs write at great length about the size and shape of pockets, which buttons to use, which cuff style is appropriate when, and the best width of jacket collars and ties. (I know this because I have spent many happy hours reading their almost obsessive discussions.)

Personally, I like to keep the cut very simple. I tend to wear silk shirts rather than cotton ones because I find them more comfortable, and I add interest through texture and colour. In the above image, I am wearing a simply cut, dark coloured velvet jacket, with mid-grey pinstripe straightline trousers. Not the most formal option, so appropriate for my workplace.

Which pearl when? At the office.

Officewear in a corporate environment is not supposed to draw attention to your body. This is a formal environment where people are supposed to be employed for their knowledge and skill, not their physical attractiveness. Although we all know this isn't always true, it does mean the dress code tends to be conservative.

Bright colours, loud patterns, and clothes and jewellery that move when you do are best worn away from the office. The classic corporate outfit - the suit - is traditionally cut to create clean lines from the shoulders downwards; in the most conservative office the only interest in the outfit provided for men is by the tie, while women may wear a coloured blouse.

Pearls are perfect jewels for officewear, as they are usually in a neutral colour, have a beautiful understated lustre, and, frankly, if the morality of nineteenth century ettiquite allowed pearls to be worn during the day, you can't go too badly wrong.

Cultured South Sea pearls are no longer rare. They are produced in Australia, Indonesia, Fiji, Tahiti, and Myanmar. The farming process has been improved over decades, and the industry now produces a huge number of high quality pearls each year. This has lead to the recent high fashion re-interest in pearls, and their gradual shaking of the 'ladies who lunch' image. Although the classic round white pearl will probably always be the one most people think of, there are many other colours and shapes that can also reflect your personality and style.

                                           

A pair of round silver grey Tahititan earrings, a pair of Keshi silver grey Tahitian earrings, an antique natural pearl ring, and a triple strand of vintage Akoya pearls.
Both my pairs of Tahitian South Sea studs have a body colour of silver, and a slight overtone of pink. The spherical pair are cultured, they are the result of a seed being implanted in the oyster. The oyster treats this as an irritant and covers it with layers of nacre over a period typically of up to two years. The aim of this is to produce a large, round, smooth pearl.
The irregular pair are Keshi pearls. Keshi's are naturally occurring pearls within a farmed oyster. They cannot be sold as 'natural' pearls as this implies they were found in a wild oyster. Keshi's happen when the seed is rejected by the oyster, or a speck of sand, or some other tiny object gets in to the oyster, and the oyster covers it with nacre. Because the nacre is much thicker than on a seeded pearl, the lustre is quite different, and mine have an iridescent 'orient' over them. The lustre of a Keshi is very similar to the lustre of a natural pearl, as both of them are pure nacre.
The antique pearl ring shows the similarty of the lustre to the Keshi pearls.
I put together the triple strand of Akoya's from a double strand and a separate single strand. The colours don't match exactly, but I don't feel they need to. The lustre and size match, and they all have warm pinkish overtones, so I feel they sit well together.