Distinguished by its use hand-carved Mother of Pearl, great weights of sterling silver and Balinese inspired textures.

The unique process by which KIR manufactures its hand-carved Mother of Pearl group is what makes each piece so special.

Bali is a small Indonesian island in Southeast Asia that is comprised of many small villages.

Art and culture are strongly tied to tradition and economy. Each village is known for its own, unique specialty, and therefore only a couple villages do stone and shell carvings.

These Balinese carvers painstakingly hand carve the soft Mother of Pearl shell into KIR designs by using a dental drill with various drill bits while employing a mechanism that causes a constant drip of water onto the shell as they carve. It can take a day or two to complete a single carving depending on the size and detail involved in the design. Each piece is a unique work of art inherently connected to the craftsperson who carved it.

The Mother of Pearl shells used in KIR jewelry are typically harvested in the Jimbaran Bay, which is part of the Indian Ocean on the coast of Bali. Once the carvings are finished, they are delivered to the KIR jewelry manufacturer to be set into the exclusive KIR jewelry designs of sterling silver.

Mother of Pearl is composed of thin, flat plates that form from the secretion of certain shellfish (primarily the large salt water pearl oyster, but also bivalve mollusks, cuttlefish, and snails). These plates are naturally arranged in layers around the inside of the shell.

The Mother of Pearl producing shellfish are usually found in a depth of water between 10 and 70 meters in seas such as the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, South China Sea, Celebes Sea, and the North Pacific Ocean.

The various waters where Mother of Pearl shells originate determine the shell color. For example, the warmer seas near the Equator produce colors of Mother of Pearl that range from pink to amber to black. The iridescence of the white Mother of Pearl occurs when light is refracted in between the layers. Because the Mother of Pearl collection is carved by hand, each piece is intrinsically a one of a kind.