STORY KIM LEE Robert Wan’s life is entwined with the world’s passion
for the legendary Tahitian black pearl.
ANCIENT Polynesian folklore tells how Oro, the god of peace and fertility, gave the pearl to mankind as a symbol of love. Mankind’s fascination with the pearl has seen it beloved by royalty and nobility, and associated with power, wealth and immortality.
On status, wealth and power, it is possible that Oro has blessed Robert Wan with the gift of the pearl. Wan’s innovation and leadership in the pearl industry has earned him status as ‘the King of Pearls’.
The pearl has certainly brought Wan wealth and power. He has built a small empire of seven pearl farms on the atolls and island he owns in Tahiti. In 30 years dedicated to the Tahitian pearl oyster and its mystical gem, Wan has become the biggest single producer and exporter of Tahitian pearls, harvesting about four tonnes annually.
Wan may have immortality too. Considering how he stepped into life with little money or education, his success practically makes him a legend in French Polynesia, where pearl farming is the second biggest economic activity after tourism in an archipelago with few resources.
When he ventured into the pearl industry in 1974, Wan was 40 years old and had cut his teeth in trade, and food and automobile businesses. “At that time, I didn’t love the pearl,” he admits, but he certainly was intrigued by it.
Holding a pearl for the first time, he saw it as “a dream become reality.” The reality was a time of roller-coaster days of a young cultured pearl industry. Japan had proved that pearls could be cultivated from oysters.
Experiments in Polynesia had shown it was possible to nurture its indigenous black-lipped oyster for Tahiti’s black pearl, vaunted for its rarity and beauty. For as long as islanders could remember, they and their ancestors had had to dive up to 40m without breathing equipment to find black-lipped oysters. One oyster out of 15,000 would bear a natural pearl. Through cultivation, the odds have been increased to 500 pearl-bearing oysters out of every 1,000 farmed. Out of that, 20 give perfect pearls.
In the 1970s, adventurous entrepreneurs leapt to become pearl farmers without realising the delicate nature of the fragile animal, or the big picture in developing the business.
The pearl is the only gem produced by a live animal,” says Wan. And “you don’t know what happens in the water. The pearl business is about hope – I call it ‘the Great Hope
business’,” laughs Wan. Many early pearl farmers failed. But Wan saw opportunity. He took over Taku farm in Mangareva in 1974. The farm had not yet produced a single pearl then.
Wan’s success in cultivating pearls lay in a dogged determination to learn from the best. The key to this was his relationship with the Japanese. One Japanese friend introduced him to an expert, Professor Sato. The professor had worked with Mikimoto, pioneer of the Japanese cultured white pearl. Through Prof Sato, Wan brought a team of Japanese scientists to his first farm to teach him the ropes from the “lagoon up”.
“I asked them a lot of questions,” remembers Wan. “When I started, I lived with them, I cooked for them, two meals a day in my farm, so we became very friendly and they had a more open mind.”
The early years were tough. The first harvest, after five years, was meagre, but it had a buyer. It was no less than Mikimoto, thanks to Prof Sato’s recommendation. Mikimoto remains Wan’s client today.
Profits came in the next year. Wan grew the business steadily, expanding his farms and developing ways to promote Tahitian pearls to the world. He created GIE Perles de Tahiti to help market the pearls internationally. In 1998, Wan raised the standards of professionalism by organising his own pearl auctions in Hong Kong.
The only time giving up ever crossed Wan’s mind came shortly after the crisis of the late 1990s. Overproduction and lesser-quality pearls had flooded the world from a glut of Tahitian black pearl producers. The crisis peaked with the 9/11 terrorism incident in 2001.
To stabilise prices, Wan cut production. He temporarily stopped grafting. 520 staff were stood down for six months and skeleton crews maintained the farms. In addition, he came up with new ways to stimulate demand, including launching a line of skincare called AquaPerla using extracts from the Tahitian pearl oyster. With a team of research scientists, a particular protein in the oyster’s nacre was isolated and incorporated into the skincare products for its beneficial properties.
Jewellery continues to fuel demand for Wan’s pearls. This includes his own jewellery, but this is done with particular care. “As a pearl producer, I have my own clients (whom) I don’t want to hurt,” says Wan. “This is why I decided to do something different – to combine fashion and the pearl. They fit perfectly!”
Wan’s traditional and modern vision of pearl jewellery encompasses three lines from the classic to the fashionable. His fashion line was inspired by Tahiti’s island appeal. Swathes of fabric make up the jewellery, often teamed with pearl shells. The look is bold and exotic, a far cry from the classic strand of pearls.
But bold and exotic are hallmarks of Wan’s life. After all, Oro may have given the pearl to mankind, but it was Robert Wan who woke the world to its beauty and its possibilities. S
