The world-famous Tahitian cultured pearl was promoted during the 18th Paris Film Festival with a gala evening organized by Perles de Tahiti and its two partners, Tahiti Tourisme and Robert Wan's Tahiti Perles.

Tahitipresse reports the pearl promotion night was held last Thursday at "La Suite", a trendy restaurant near the Champs Elysées in the French capital, Paris, where many stars attended the evening function wearing Tahiti's lovely cultural pearl necklaces.

The evening, billed as "Stars en Perles" (the star of all pearls), brought together a variety of personalities from Tahiti, ranging from Mareva Galanter and Mareva Georges (two former Miss Tahiti and Miss France winners) to Béatrice Vernaudon, one of French Polynesia's two deputies in the French National Assembly.

Martin Coeroli, general manager of Perles de Tahiti, the 10-year-old trade association that promotes Tahitian pearls worldwide, invited them to the occasion.

Other guests included French film stars such as Grace de Capitani and Elsa Zylberstein, who is an ambassadress of the humanitarian association "Equilibres & Populations", a non-government organization created by physicians and journalists to advocate the more efficient use of development aid for activities promoting health and education.

She called on the generosity of the personalities present to support Tahiti's pearl culture.

Coeroli said the gala's aim was to associate Tahitian cultured pearls with the beauty of the women actresses chosen to attend in order to generate sponsorship for the Paris Film Festival.

"We also wanted to support the charitable cause 'Equilibres et populations' by creating a series of 'Stars en Perles' postcards," he said. "This was a message of love to all women"