Paspaley launches men’s pearl jewelry inspired by divers and maritime tools

Paspaley has used its first dedicated men’s fine jewellery collection to reframe pearls as working maritime objects, not decorative afterthoughts. The DIVER line translates anchor chains, mooring ropes, compass bearings and bollards into necklaces, rings and pendants, giving men’s pearl jewelry a utilitarian language that feels more like gear than ornament.

That shift matters because it opens a new customer base for a house long associated with women’s South Sea pearls. Paspaley’s men’s collection lists 46 designs, ranging from about $800 to $32,800, with names that make the concept explicit: DIVER Pearl Necklace, DIVER Pearl Strand Necklace, DIVER Bollard Pearl Cord Necklace and DIVER Black Shark Pendant. The most persuasive pieces are the ones that keep the pearl anchored in hardware, including asymmetrical anchor-link chains in 18K white gold and palladium, key-end clasps and blackened metal finishes that temper the softness of the nacre.

The materials are equally deliberate. DIVER mixes keshi and baroque South Sea pearls with blackened 18-karat gold, platinum, black spinel and ruthenium-coated finishes, a palette that steers the collection away from traditional pearl cues and toward a sharper, industrial silhouette. That choice gives the line a credible entry point for men who may never have considered pearls before, while still keeping the stones unmistakably Paspaley.

The brand’s authority here rests on a deep pearling history. Paspaley says it was founded in 1935, beginning with mother-of-pearl shells for the button trade, and traces its origins to founder Nicholas Paspaley Snr, who arrived from Kastellorizo and bought his first pearling lugger in the 1930s. Industry material describes Paspaley as Australia’s largest and oldest pearling company, with 40 professional pearl divers and a wild-shell quota in the range of 300,000 to 400,000 oysters a year. It is also the world’s largest fisher of wild pearl oysters.

That provenance gives the collection more weight than a simple category extension. Paspaley says its Pinctada maxima farms stretch from Gove in the Northern Territory to Exmouth in Western Australia, and the house still hand-collects wild oysters along Australia’s north-west coastline. The Australian silver-lipped pearl oyster fishery became the world’s first MSC-certified pearl operation in 2017, was re-certified in 2023 and is certified through 2027. For buyers, DIVER is not just a men’s launch. It is a brand strategy that turns working maritime infrastructure, sustainability credentials and pearl-diving heritage into a masculine design code.