CZ Collar Set with Emerald Square

A necklace set in gold-tone brass, set with cubic zirconia and coloured glass stones. It follows the curve of the collarbone in one continuous band. The design is built around a geometric panel. Photographed in Sea Green.

Geometric settings arrived in Indian jewellery with Art Deco in the 1920s and never left. They suit cubic zirconia particularly well, because a machine-cut stone is already a geometric object.

The clear stones are cubic zirconia, sold across India as American Diamond, or simply AD. Cubic zirconia is a laboratory-grown crystal of zirconium dioxide, and it is not an imitation in the way glass is: it is a genuinely hard, singly refractive crystal, cut on the same wheels as diamond. It disperses light into slightly more colour than a diamond does, which is why a good AD piece reads as bright rather than as dull paste.

The broad rim around each coloured stone is the kundan idiom, carried over from a technique in which pure gold foil is pressed cold around the stone until it holds. Nothing here is gold foil, but the proportions are the ones that technique produced.

Colour options

One colourway is stocked, in Sea Green — the shade the design was drawn for and the one in the photographs.

Materials used

Underneath the plating the piece is brass, finished with a premium gold polish. The weight in your hand is the brass; the colour is the polish.

A closer look

It wants an open neckline. Against a high-necked kurta the design has nowhere to sit, so keep it for a saree blouse or a boat neck, and pin your dupatta behind the shoulder.

What you are buying at this price is design rather than material, and that is a reasonable thing to buy. The shapes here come out of a jewellery tradition several centuries old, and they work at a tenth of the weight and a hundredth of the cost of the gold versions.

Care and storage

Plating is a surface, so it wears where it rubs. Perfume and sweat dull it fastest, so spray first and dress second, then wipe the piece with a soft dry cloth. A zip-lock pouch with the air squeezed out really is the best storage — it is what keeps oxygen off the metal.

A note on what this is not: it is not hallmarked, it is not precious metal, and it carries no resale value. Keyura sells it as what it is — a well-made plated piece with good stones, priced accordingly, and described here without the word gold doing any work it has not earned.

Rather than an add-to-cart button you will find an enquiry button, and that is deliberate: these arrive in small quantities per colour, and we would rather confirm the shade is in hand than refund you later. All Keyura orders are prepaid. We do not offer cash on delivery.