New Book: The Irresistible Pearl Necklace – The pearl necklace is an iconic classic, which has offered an irresistible invitation to subversive reinterpretation through the centuries. Renaissance queens, maharajas, First Ladies, and starlets from the Golden Age of Hollywood to the present have all made the pearl necklace part of their wardrobes, each wearing it after the fashion of the times or their own fancy. In The Pearl Necklace, Assouline and Mikimoto explore the legacy of these lustrous strands through fine art and fashion in a luxurious volume that reminds us why the pearl necklace has long been the ultimate object of fascination and fantasy. See also: Book Review: Once Upon a Chair… Jewelry historian Vivienne Becker is an award-winning journalist and author of several books on the history of jewelry design. Based in London, Becker is a contributing editor to Financial Times’s How to Spend It magazine, writes for newspapers and magazines around the world, and lectures and broadcasts on her subject. She organized and wrote the catalog for the first major exhibition of the jewelry of René Lalique, and curated Jewels of Fantasy, a traveling exhibition of twentieth-century costume jewelry. Becker’s previous books for Assouline include De Beers Jewellery…