There is more to reweaving than just restringing pearls. Repeating a pattern is one thing, but dealing with small pearls which are often clogged with glue and horse hair is something else entirely. I have spent years restoring pieces for Sotheby’s and Christies auction houses. Reweaving also deals with something I call the ‘perfect curve’. Antique necklaces or chokers never form a straight line: The human neck doesn’t have a shape of a cylinder; it is narrow at the top and wider at the shoulders. To hug the neck perfectly, the necklace must be curved, meaning that the size of the pearls must be gradually reduced from the outside curve towards the inside curve. This difference in sizes is frequently less than half a millimeter. The ‘perfect curve’ is also one indication to distinguish between the real thing and an imitation.
