Gabriel & Co. wins INSTORE pearl award with spiked pearl earrings

Pearls looked strongest when they stopped behaving like dress pearls and started acting like architecture. Gabriel & Co.’s Bujukan Pearl Spike Leverback Drop earrings captured that shift most clearly, pairing cultured freshwater pearls with 0.25 carat total weight of diamonds in 14K white and yellow gold, a combination that won first place in INSTORE’s Pearl Under 5K category at $1,750.

The appeal is in the tension. Ellie Thompson said the spikes add strength to the soft pearls, and Smitha Sadanandan called the design a chic clash of soft and sharp. That balance is exactly what gives the earrings their modern edge: the leverback drop format keeps them clean and wearable, while the spiked detailing pushes the silhouette away from traditional pearl prettiness and toward something more assertive for everyday dressing.

The win came inside the 11th edition of the INSTORE Design Awards, where entries totaled 229, matching last year’s number. This year also brought a new Small Batch Colored Gemstone category for makers with five or fewer employees. Six retailers and three media personalities judged the competition through blind voting, and hundreds of retailers nationwide then voted online to pick a Retailer’s Choice winner in each category. In that field, the pearl category favored pieces that felt engineered rather than ornamental.

Amáli Jewelry’s Long Textile earrings took second place and Retailer’s Choice at $1,500, a price that keeps them squarely in the same under-$5K conversation while leaning in a different direction. The design uses cultured freshwater pearls in 18K yellow gold, but the effect is less pointed and more fluid: Amáli describes the pearls as suspended in hand-woven lengths of gold chain, which gives the earrings a textile quality and a sense of movement that reads as contemporary rather than formal. Designer Sara Freedenfeld’s use of elongated lines makes the pearls feel like part of a vertical composition, not a matched set for special occasions.

Gabriel & Co. places the Bujukan line around gold spheres, mini-cluster diamonds and chain elements, with inspiration drawn from the Balinese idea of persuasion. That helps explain why the winning pair feels so resolved: it uses familiar pearl material, then frames it with structure, sparkle and a little bite. In a category crowded with safe elegance, these were the pieces that made pearls look current without making them lose their refinement.