The Marlow Pendant

Most pendants are set to face forward and end up facing sideways, because a chain rotates and a person moves. The Marlow accepts this instead of fighting it. The stone hangs from a bail that lets it swing freely and is set open on both faces, so it reads as deliberate from every angle rather than as a mistake from three of them.

Setting a stone open at the back is harder than it sounds. There is no plate to hide a seat that is not quite true, no metal behind the pavilion to bounce light back, and no way to disguise a stone that is off-centre by a fraction. What you gain is considerable: light passes straight through the stone rather than reflecting off a backing, which makes a modest stone look substantially livelier against skin, and the piece weighs almost nothing.

The chain is the part people underestimate. We make it to a measured length rather than offering the usual three, because the difference between forty-two and forty-five centimetres is the difference between a pendant that sits in the hollow of the throat and one that sits on the sternum, and those are two different pieces of jewellery. We take the measurement in the room, on the day, over the kind of neckline it will actually be worn with.

What changes per commission: the stone, plainly, but also the bail — a plain rolled bail, a hinged one that lets the pendant sit flat, or a fixed one that holds the stone at a slight forward angle. And the chain: cable, trace, or a heavier belcher for anyone who wears one piece and never takes it off.

A pendant is the piece people most often commission for someone else, and the one they most often get right. It asks less of a size than a ring does, and it carries a stone that would look severe on a hand very easily at the throat.