A pear-cut stone hangs below a small sparkling top in these short drop earrings of rhodium-plated 925 sterling silver. The top is a rhombus with gently curved sides, edged with a fine beaded rim and covered in pavé of tiny colorless zircons; it sits on the earlobe on a post. From it, on a small silver loop, swings a teardrop frame, and inside the frame, held by prongs with open space all around it, is a pear of lab-grown zultanite of about 10 mm. In daylight the stone reads a deep cognac brown.

That brown is only one of its faces. Zultanite belongs to the color-change gems, so the drop does not hold a single tone: as the light around you changes, the stone changes with it, and the pair you put on in the morning can look different by night. Buyers often ask whether zultanite earrings are real. The honest answer for this pair: it is lab-grown zultanite, made in a laboratory rather than mined, and it is heated.

We cast each earring in 925 sterling silver and finish it by hand in our workshop in Türkiye. Rhodium plating gives the polished metal a bright white surface that lets both the zircons and the brown drop stand out, and it helps the silver resist tarnish. Seen from the side, the band of the teardrop frame is pierced with small windows, so the frame looks light rather than solid. Each earring has a post with a butterfly push back. From the top of the pavé to the tip of the drop an earring measures about 2.6 cm, and the pair weighs about 5.1 grams.

At that length these are small dangle earrings: the drop moves when you turn your head, yet it hangs well clear of a collar or scarf. A pear drop under a pavé top is a classic earring line, and here the warm color of the stone is what keeps it from being plain white sparkle. Zircon counts among the December birthstones, so the pavé gives a December birthday a quiet link to her month. As a gift, these elegant earrings suit a girlfriend, a wife or a mother who likes some warmth in her jewelry.