Rigid Collar Necklace Set with Stone Drops

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 an open flower. Photographed in Pink.

Design and detail

Flowers in Indian jewellery are rarely botanical. They are stylised into a repeating unit that can be scaled up or down to fill any space, which is why the same bloom turns up on a ring, on a necklace and on a temple door.

Shaped drops hang below the main body of the piece, lengthening the line and keeping the design from reading as a solid block.

Materials used

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.

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 Pink — 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.

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.

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.

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.

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. Payment is prepaid in every case; cash on delivery is not available.