Eight Petal Flower Payal on Fine Chain

Payal is simply the Hindi word for an anklet, and in most of India it is still the first piece of jewellery a girl is given and the last an older woman takes off. It is worn as a pair, one on each ankle, and traditionally it was meant to be heard as much as seen — the sound announced that someone was coming, which in a joint household was a courtesy rather than a performance.

A closer look

One flower, nine stones, and nothing else. This is the simplest stone-set anklet in the range and probably the best-judged: a single eight-petal bloom sitting at the side of the ankle on a chain fine enough to almost disappear.

The construction is worth looking at closely. The centre is a round cabochon — domed rather than faceted, so it holds a single soft highlight instead of sparkling — and it sits in a bezel edged with a twisted rope wire. Around it radiate eight pear-cut cabochons, each in its own plain bezel, set point-inward so they read unmistakably as petals. Tiny grains of metal fill the gaps where the petals meet, which stops the flower looking like eight separate stones stuck to a disc.

Cabochons rather than faceted stones is the decision that makes this piece. A faceted stone at this size would flash and scatter; a cabochon glows. On an ankle, where the piece is mostly seen in motion and from above, the steady glow reads far better than sparkle.

What it is made of

A word on the stones, because it matters when you are choosing a colour. These are glass and cubic zirconia, not gemstones, cut and polished and set by hand into closed metal bezels. That is the traditional setting for Indian costume jewellery and it does two useful things: the closed back holds the stone securely against the knocks an anklet takes, and it puts a dark oxidised rim around every stone so the colour reads clearly instead of washing out against the metal.

Colours and availability

It also means the colours are saturated rather than subtle. A sea green here is a true green-blue, a ruby is a deep pink-red, and the baby pink is pale and milky rather than bright. The photographs on each swatch are of that exact colourway, so trust them over the colour name.

Four colourways are stocked. Green is the deep bottle green of the main photograph, the most striking of the four and the one that suits a traditional saree best. Red and Ruby are the two warm options — Red the darker and more muted, Ruby the brighter pink-red. Multi gives each petal a different colour.

German silver is the trade name for a bright white alloy of copper, nickel and zinc. It contains no silver at all. What it does have is a hard, cool-toned surface that takes an oxidised finish well and resists scratching better than plated brass, which is why almost every everyday Indian anklet is made to look like it.

When to wear it

Because the chain is so fine and the flower sits flat, this is one of the few genuinely ornate anklets you can wear under a trouser hem or with closed shoes. It is silent. It is also the one in this range that works as a single anklet if you prefer to wear one, because a lone flower on a plain chain does not look like half of something.

A note on wearing a pair rather than one. Single anklets have become common and there is nothing wrong with wearing one, but a pair sits differently: the two sounds fall slightly out of step as you walk, which is what produces the soft irregular jingle people associate with payal rather than a single repeating note.

Keeping it looking right

An anklet lives a harder life than any other piece of jewellery. It meets shoes, floors, door frames and bedsheets, and it is the piece most likely to be worn into the shower because taking it off is a nuisance. Water is what dulls an oxidised finish fastest and it is also what loosens a bezel-set stone over time, so slip it off before bathing. A dry soft cloth is the whole cleaning routine — never a silver polish or a dip, which strip the blackening the design depends on and can fog the stones.