Company founder Kokichi Mikimoto (1858-1954), dedicated decades of his young life to researching methods of creating a process of 'culturing' pearls. In 1893, he succeeded. At that time, naturally occurring pearls were becoming increasingly scarce, partly due to over-harvesting; today, they are extremely rare.

The process of culturing pearls involves the raising of healthy mother oysters, some of which are then selected to be inserted with a nucleus, which is made from round beads of freshwater mussels from the Mississippi and Tennessee rivers. These oysters are then raised in pearl farms, before the pearls are harvested from the oysters around a year and a half later. The entire process takes around four years. Mikimoto only uses the best quality pearls, with a good shape and high lustre, in the top 10% of the harvest.

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The significance of Mikimoto's breakthrough invention was recognized when, in 1930, he was invited to the Imperial Palace as one of the top 10 Japanese inventors.

Throughout his lifetime, Kokichi Mikimoto was constantly acquiring new ideas about jewellery and fashion from travelling around the world, and incorporating the best designs and processes into his own company. The distinctive Mikimoto style has arisen from the fusion of traditional Japanese design and techniques with European design ideas.

The Mikimoto mission lives on today, through the maintenance of the highest standards of quality in the pearl industry, and the continual strive for the finest materials and the most elegant of jewellery.

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