The gallery is a family-owned business. Moreover, the eponymous Holly Zhang, who began working with pearls as a young professional in China, was honored this year by the Bellevue Downtown Association as one of the city's "extraordinary leaders."

"When you're a female entrepreneur, you have more obstacles to conquer," Zhang told the association in March. "It's crucial that you seek help and resources from the right people when you run into those barriers."

That message fits with the gallery's record of charitable events, which will carry on at the market. Twenty percent of the sales made that afternoon will go to Mary's Place, a venerable organization that runs five family shelters in King County. Last year alone, those shelters helped move over 500 families into stable housing.

Zhang has also held fundraisers for Compass Housing Alliance, Volunteers in Action, the MultiCare Health Foundation, and Mary Bridge Children's Hospital, which has brought her business full-circle, in a way. Although she first discovered her love for pearls as an interpreter in China in 1999, she began working as a jewelry vendor in 2005, at a pop-up shop that traveled to hospitals all over Washington state. Finally, she landed a brick-and-mortar store in Bellevue in 2011.

Such is Zhang's involvement with the local community that she ran for city council in 2019. In the same spirit as her charity work, her platform contained policies that would ease restrictions on how many rooms could be rented in one house, which, she said, would make housing more affordable. She also advocated for subsidizing childcare for poor families.

Zhang didn't win the race, but clearly, that hasn't stopped her from continuing to effect real change.

As for the pearls themselves, they're high-quality freshwater and saltwater variants not commonly found in the US, such as Akoya, which are largely produced in Japan; Tahitian black, from near Tahiti; and Gold South Sea, which are farmed from the Philippines.

With shiny pearls in hand, the next step is design. Zhang begins that process herself, but it's "harder than you think," she told the association. "To really succeed in this business, you must learn about the fashion industry and how other cultures have woven jewelry into their clothing."

Researching both history and current trends is the key, she went on, which often means scouring fashion magazines for clues.

One of the gallery's most prominent features is its wedding-focused jewelry-fitting service, which allows brides and grooms to try on pieces from the gallery's collection and see what compliments their wedding attire best.