Gold Tone Mango Haar with Jhumka Earrings

A necklace set in gold-tone brass, set with cubic zirconia and coloured glass stones. It is cut as a long haar, the full-length necklace of a bridal set. The design is built around the paisley, or mango. Photographed in Gold.

What you are looking at

The paisley — also called the mango, or kalka — is a Kashmiri shawl motif that moved onto jewellery in the nineteenth century. Its curved tip gives a line of stones somewhere to end, which is why it appears at the corners of so many necklaces.

The earrings are jhumkas: a dome with a flared bell hung below it. The jhumka is probably the oldest surviving Indian earring shape, and the bell is what makes it swing rather than merely dangle.

Metal and stones

The white stones here are cubic zirconia — American Diamond, or AD, in the Indian trade. It is grown rather than mined, cut to the same geometry as a diamond, and noticeably more dispersive, so it breaks white light into visible colour. That dispersion is the quality you are actually buying.

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 Gold — the shade the design was drawn for and the one in the photographs.

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.

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.

How to wear it

There is no sense in which this is an investment piece, and that is rather the point of it — you can buy a colour that suits one outfit, wear it to one wedding, and be satisfied.

How to care for it

The care is simple and it matters: no water, no perfume, no chemicals on the metal. Wipe it dry after wearing and store it sealed rather than in open air, because humidity is the enemy of any plated finish.

Measurements

Buying this as a gift is straightforward, because nothing here needs a size. The fit is fixed or adjustable rather than measured, which removes the one thing that usually goes wrong with jewellery bought for somebody else.

Why glass rather than coloured CZ for the colour? Because glass wins on colour. Cubic zirconia can be doped to any shade, but the result is pale and watery at this price, where coloured glass gives the deep ruby and bottle green that Indian jewellery expects. The clear stones are CZ because CZ wins on light. Each material is used where it is better.

This piece is listed for enquiry rather than instant checkout, because stock on the colour you want has to be confirmed before we take money for it. Use the enquiry button on this page and we will come back with availability, the final price and a delivery window. All Keyura orders are prepaid. We do not offer cash on delivery.