Green Teardrop Pendant Chain Set

A necklace set in gold-tone brass, set with cubic zirconia and coloured glass stones. It drops low on the chest, so it reads as a statement piece rather than a collar. The design is built around a single hanging drop. Photographed in Sea Green.

Design and detail

Hanging the main weight below the line of the piece is an old trick: a drop moves with the wearer, so it catches light that a flat panel cannot.

What it is made of

Cubic zirconia does the work. Known in India as American Diamond, it is a grown crystal, hard enough to hold a sharp facet edge and bright enough to carry a whole design on its own. Where there is colour it is glass, and that is the right choice — glass takes a deeper, more saturated colour than CZ ever will.

Those flat metal rims around the coloured stones are a kundan borrowing. Kundan setting beds a flat-topped stone in soft gold worked cold around its edge — no claws, no heat. The shape it leaves behind is the most recognisable thing in Indian jewellery, and it survives here in plated brass.

Which colours are stocked

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

It is plated brass — a gold polish over a brass body. That is what makes a piece this size affordable, and the brass is also why it has some heft rather than feeling like foil.

Keep the rest of the upper body plain. With a piece this size the necklace and the earrings are the whole ornament — skip the chain, skip a second pendant, and let the neckline do the framing.

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.

Keeping it looking right

Treat the plating as the wearing part. Keep it away from water, perfume and hair spray, put it on after you have finished dressing, and wipe it with a dry cotton cloth before it goes away. Stored dry in a zip pouch with the air pressed out, the finish lasts for years; left in a humid bathroom it will not last a season.

The photographs on this page are of the piece itself, shot under ordinary light rather than in a studio, so what you see is close to what arrives. Screens do shift colour, though, and a deep red can read as maroon on one phone and as crimson on another — if the exact shade matters to you, ask on the enquiry and we will describe it against something familiar.

Checkout on this piece runs through an enquiry rather than a cart. Colour stock moves quickly at this price, so we confirm the exact shade, the price and the delivery estimate with you first. All Keyura orders are prepaid. We do not offer cash on delivery.