Blue stones

Blue is the colour people reach for when they want to say something plainly. Wear it high — a short chain, a choker, a small point — and it sits where the words come from, which is not an accident of fashion; it has been worn that way for a very long time.

Blue against copper-tone wire should clash and does not. Warm metal takes the chill off a cool stone and stops it reading as cold, and the two together are the most reliable pairing in the whole shop. Silver-tone does the opposite: it keeps the blue sharp and lets the stone do all the talking.

It is also the hardest colour to photograph honestly. A blue that is streaked or fibrous changes as it turns, so a single frame will always undersell it, and a stone name would be a guess dressed up as a fact. What the listing tells you instead is what the stone does in the light, because that part is true in any weather.