How Kundan Jewellery Is Made: A Look Inside the Craft

Every Kundan piece that leaves our Santacruz workshop has passed through several pairs of hands before it reaches you: a setter, an enameller, a polisher, each trained in a craft that has not fundamentally changed in centuries. The finished necklace or earring looks effortless. The process behind it is anything but. Here is what actually happens on the workbench.

What is Kundan, in one sentence?

Kundan is a setting technique, not a stone. It is the method of holding a gemstone or glass piece in place using thin, hand-worked strips of gold, pressed into a metal base with no prongs, no claws and no adhesive at all. The metal itself is the fastening.

How is a Kundan stone set?

It starts with the base: a piece cut and shaped from gold-plated brass or copper, engraved with a shallow recess (a “kundan bed”) exactly the size and shape of the stone it will hold. The setter then works fine strips of gold foil around the inside edge of that recess by hand, using small wooden and metal tools, until the foil lines the bed.

The stone goes in next, seated into the bed, and the setter folds the foil up and over its edges from every side, working it inward in small repeated presses until the stone is gripped purely by the pressure of the folded metal. There is no heat and no glue in this step. It is entirely mechanical, entirely by feel. A rushed setting shows immediately as an uneven edge or a loose stone, which is why this is one of the slowest steps in the whole process.

Why fold metal instead of using prongs like Western jewellery?

Worked gold is soft and malleable enough to fold and reshape by hand at room temperature, which is exactly what this technique needs. Prongs grip a stone from a few fixed points and can chip a fragile or unevenly cut stone. A Kundan setting cradles the entire lower edge of the stone in moulded metal, which is part of why the technique has historically suited uncut, natural-shaped stones (as in Polki) as well as faceted glass. It is also a technique built for hand craftsmanship rather than machine casting, which is why Kundan work has stayed a workshop craft passed from artisan to artisan.

Where does Meenakari fit into the process?

On pieces that combine both crafts, the enamelling happens before the stone-setting, not after. The reverse of the piece is hand-painted with coloured enamel and fired at high heat, a process covered in our guide to Meenakari, Kundan and Polki, and only once that has cooled and set does the piece move to the Kundan setter for the front. The order matters: enamel firing involves real heat, and the soft foil of a finished Kundan setting would not survive it.

How long does one piece take?

A single necklace with multiple stones can take an artisan anywhere from a full day to several days of hands-on work, spread across the base engraving, foil-setting, polishing and any enamel work, well before the final assembly of chains and clasps. A full bridal set, with a matching necklace, earrings and maang tikka, is effectively several individually made pieces brought together to read as one, which is part of why bridal Kundan sets take longer to produce than everyday pieces.

How Sirini makes its Kundan pieces

Sirini’s Kundan jewellery is made with this same hand-setting craft, over a gold-plated brass or copper base rather than solid gold. That is a deliberate choice, not a shortcut: it is what lets a genuinely handcrafted bridal set sit at a price a bride can actually justify. The setting, the engraving and the enamel work are done by hand. What you are not paying for is the gold weight. For the full explanation of what gold-plated means for everyday wear and lifespan, read gold-plated vs solid gold jewellery.

When you see the slight, deliberate variation between two “identical” Kundan earrings, that is the signature of hand-setting, not a flaw. Explore our Kundan collection, or read how to style a Kundan set for your wedding day.