The art of Polki: how royal courts wore their diamonds

Long before the brilliant cut arrived in India, diamonds were worn the way the earth made them — uncut, unpolished, and full of quiet fire. This is Polki: the oldest form of diamond jewellery in the world, perfected in the royal ateliers of India.

A Polki stone is set with its natural facets intact, backed by a thin gold foil that throws light back through the stone. The result is a soft, moonlit glow — nothing like the sharp sparkle of a modern solitaire, and that is exactly the point. Polki was never meant to shout. It was meant to smoulder in candlelight, across a durbar hall.

At Kratim, our Noor collection borrows this vocabulary faithfully. Each kundan-set stone is placed by hand into carved gold-tone foils, following the same padding-and-pressing technique the karigars of Indore have carried for generations. The materials are honest imitation — the technique is entirely real.

When you wear a Polki-style choker today, you are wearing five centuries of court dress on your collarbone. We think that deserves to be worn often — not locked away for one wedding a decade.