Four stages, many hands.

The pieces in this store are chosen, not simply stocked. Twice a season we sit with the karigars and small workshops we buy from, in Chennai and further afield, and go through their drawings and samples: a Lakshmi coin whose face is sharp enough to read, a peacock whose tail does not blur into a blob, a jhumka that hangs straight. Perhaps one design in ten makes it to the counter.

Many designs begin with a customer. Someone brings in a grandmother's haram and asks for the same look at a price that can be worn to every function rather than kept in a locker; the drawing of that piece, redone in brass, is how half our temple range began.

Plating is a thin layer of gold-coloured metal deposited on the brass in an electroplating bath, then sealed with a lacquer that slows tarnish. The antique finish is a darker plating rubbed back on the raised work so the figures glow against a matted ground; the matte finish is the same plating left soft and even. How long any of it lasts depends far more on sweat, perfume and water than on the piece, which is why our care notes matter.

Stones are set afterwards: kemp (coloured glass cut in the old temple shapes), American diamonds, pearls and coral beads, each glued or closed-set by hand into its collet. A good setter leaves no gaps and no glue on show, and a stone that moves under a fingernail goes back to the bench.