The Disruptive Design by Tasaki 

A century ago, being cutting edge truly meant breaking the mold, experimenting and arousing astonishment. Especially in a country that was geographically on the edge of the world and culturally a thousand miles away from the great market of the Old Continent. This story started in Kyushu, a small, almost unknown island on the fringes of the Empire of the Rising Sun, where, in 1929, Shunsaku Tasaki, the son of a simple pearl farmer, began to imagine a new way of offering those white gems he knew so well. Or rather, as he always loved to say, a way to “grow, polish and cherish the glorious beauty born from the sea.” It was in 1954 when, with the five pearls he had found as a child that had since become his good luck charm still in his pocket, Shunsaku decided to move to Kobe to focus on production standards of such high quality that the beauty of his Akoyas soon earned him fame and, above all, a rich international clientele. The greatest experts in the sector worked for him and, as early as 1970, they developed cultivation systems that anticipated the concept of sustainability by at least thirty years. 2009 was the year of rebranding - from from Tasaki Pearl to Tasaki – and a restyling of the flagship store in Ginza, Tokyo. Two important steps that heralded the dawn of a new era, as well as the launch of the Tasaki Collection Line. The first collection, Balance, immediately became a best seller. An exploit by Creative Director Thakoom Panichgul, which in an instant imposed the Tasaki style personality: with 5 pearls arranged along a bar of gold, the Balance Ring summed up the innovative and minimalist style that the most traditional of gems, an age-old symbol of Made in Japan jewelry, finally took on. Balance is also the title of the monograph recently published by Rizzoli International in which Maria Doulton retraces the main stages of that sophisticated and cultured “rebellion” that set off 70 years ago from Kobe and landed in the world's most exclusive boutiques, in Asia as well as in the Middle East, Europe and the United States. Hence advertising campaigns by Daniel Jackson and Peter Lindbergh, Red Carpets populated by stars such as Bella and Gigi Hadid, Diane Kruger and Candice Swanepoel, and collaborations with designer Melanie Georgacopoulos and Fiona Kruger for the watch line.