Round Multi Stone Studs with Pearl Border

A pair of studs in gold-tone brass, set with cubic zirconia and coloured stones. They measure about 1 in. The design is built around a cluster of stones. Photographed in Pink.

What you are looking at

Massing small stones into a cluster is the cheapest way to get the light of one large stone, and it is how Indian jewellery has always answered that problem — the cluster has a far longer history here than the solitaire.

The matching earrings are small studs, which is unusual in a set of this kind — most bridal sets leave you with earrings you can wear once a year.

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.

Materials used

American Diamond is the Indian trade name for cubic zirconia, a crystal grown in a furnace rather than dug out of the ground. It takes a proper facet, holds a polish, and throws a little more coloured fire than diamond because it bends light harder. At this price it is the only stone that will give a design real light.

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

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

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.

How to wear it

They suit hair tied back, and they go as happily with a plain cotton kurta as with silk — earrings are the one piece of Indian jewellery that never needs an occasion.

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.

Care and storage

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.

Rather than an add-to-cart button you will find an enquiry button, and that is deliberate: these arrive in small quantities per colour, and we would rather confirm the shade is in hand than refund you later. Keyura is prepaid only EM there is no cash on delivery on any order.