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Mother of Pearl The young founder of white-hot online biz PurePearls marries (literally) traditional style with entrepreneurial savvy

“I’ve always liked pearls,” says beautiful Amanda Raab.  “Simple, classic pieces that are always in style.”

Even for a casual lunch, dressed in jeans and a white eyelet top, Raab sports her trademark Akoya pearl necklace and earrings.  Trust-fund baby?  Trophy wife?  Nah, Raab is the 26-year-old mastermind of PurePearls.com, one of the hottest virtual jewelry stores in cyberspace.  This gal from Shiner, Texas, is bubbly and brilliant---a whirlwind entrepreneur with a masters degree in speech pathology and an eye for e-commerce.

“I shopped a lot online in grad school,” Raab says.  “So I just started thinking about a business I could do on the Internet.”  Raab cultivated relationships with pearl farmers in China and Japan, eliminating the middleman, and she taught herself how to optimize her website by tapping into search engines.  She built a multi-million-dollar firm selling fab pearls at a discount---internationally sourced saltwater and freshwater varieties.  (She offers them as both lustrous loose pearls and in custom-made designs.) 

She’s become quite the expert.  “The Greeks used pearls in wedding ceremonies,” she says.  “They meant purity and love.  Today, they’re the most popular form of bridal jewelry.”

Raab herself was married in April to cute Scott Hibner, a fellow overachiever.  On the big day, she, of course, wore pearls with her strapless A-line gown of silk organza by Priscilla of Boston.  She adorned it with Akoya pearl stud earrings and a double-strand Akoya bracelet.  “Often wedding gowns are elaborate, and a simple strand of pearls is perfect.  I went the other way---a simple dress and very fancy pearls.”