Peacock Ear Cuff with Jhumka Drop

An ear cuff in gold-tone brass, set with cubic zirconia and worn on the upper rim of the ear, where it needs no piercing. The design is built around the peacock. Photographed in Red.

What you are looking at

The peacock is the oldest motif in Indian ornament and the most loaded: it stands for rain, for fertility and for Krishna, and its fanned tail gives a jeweller a natural way to spread small stones across a wide surface.

The drop below the cuff is a jhumka: 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.

Small pearls finish the lower edge. Pearls do something no faceted stone can — they give back a soft, diffused light, which calms a design that would otherwise be all sparkle.

Metal and stones

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.

Where the coloured stones sit in flat rims of metal rather than claws, the piece is borrowing from kundan work. In true kundan, pure gold foil is burnished cold around a stone until friction alone grips it; it is one of the few setting methods that needs neither heat nor solder. Costume jewellery copies the look in plated brass, and the broad flat rim is the tell.

Which colours are stocked

It is stocked in 2 shades: Red and White. The photographs show one of them and the swatches on this page show the rest; the shade you choose is confirmed on your enquiry before anything is charged.

The base is brass under a premium gold polish. Brass is the right base for costume jewellery — heavy enough to feel like something, soft enough to be worked, and it does not go brittle with age.

Because it clips rather than pierces, an ear cuff goes on and comes off in seconds. Seat it high on the ear where the cartilage is thinnest and it will stay put through an evening.

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.

Looking after 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.

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.