The Box Story
A box that has changed.
A tradition that hasn't.
For more than a century, every Add-A-Pearl necklace has arrived in a small, deliberately chosen box. The box has been reimagined many times over. So has the pearl inside it. The tradition between them has not.
Across four generations of families, the Add-A-Pearl box has worn many faces — Art Deco ivory, mid-century blue, modern signature purple. Inside each one, the same quiet promise: a single pearl, beautifully strung, made to grow.
Chapter 1
A storied life.
The very first Add-A-Pearl boxes were made in 1915 from ivory paperboard, finished with a gold border, an embossed Art Deco frame, and a small portrait of a child on the lid. They were designed to feel like keepsakes from the beginning — small enough to be saved, dignified enough to be remembered.
In the decades since, the box has been redesigned with the times: blue and white brochure boxes through the 1940s and 50s, illustrated covers in the 1960s, the printed pearl-and-chain look of the 1970s, and finally the signature purple velvet Add-A-Pearl is known for today.
"The same idea, dressed for a new century."
From the Add-A-Pearl archive.
A century of Add-A-Pearl, in print
"The Add-A-Pearl Necklace"
"The Ageless Gift"
"The Natural Pearl Necklace"
"The Gift that Grows"
The box has worn many faces.
The tradition, only one.
A century of one pearl at a time
Chapter 2
An enduring tradition.
The packaging has changed many times over. The way of giving has not. Every Add-A-Pearl is still chosen by hand, graded against the same standards of luster, surface, shape, and color our specialists used a century ago.
And the gesture is exactly the way it was: a single pearl, placed into a young girl's hand to mark a moment in her life — and another, and another, until a finished strand carries the years it took to gather it.
"What changes is the wrapping. What endures is the gesture."
Chapter 3
A sign of her times.
In every era, a young girl has received an Add-A-Pearl from someone who loved her. The dress changes. The portrait style changes. The box changes. The gesture does not.
Then.
A first pearl, generations ago
A first pearl placed into a girl's hand, and a printed guide alongside it — in cursive ink, with the promise of pearls still to come.
Now.
A first pearl, today
A young girl in her first pearl, the strand to come still waiting to be written — pearl by pearl, moment by moment.
Begin her chapter today.
One pearl is all it takes to begin a tradition of her own.