If you cannot measure them, buy a necklace, and buy 55 cm. A necklace closes on most people — length only decides where it falls on the chest, so being a size out is a question of taste rather than of fit. A bracelet is the harder gift: it has to clear the wrist without sliding off the hand, and we offer two sizes, so there is less room to be wrong.
Jewellery is a hard gift because the good version requires information you usually cannot ask for without ruining the surprise. Here is how to get it right anyway.
Why a necklace forgives a wrong guess
It comes down to what happens when you get it wrong.
Every necklace we offer is 50 cm or longer, and a neck is a good deal smaller than that. It closes on most people, and all the length decides is where the chain falls on the chest. Buy 55 cm where 50 would have suited them better and it sits a couple of centimetres lower than it might have — which is a look, not a fault, and one plenty of people choose on purpose.
A bracelet has to land inside a window. Too small and it will not close at all. Too large and it travels down over the hand and can come off. We offer 19 and 22 cm, so you are picking one of two points and hoping their wrist falls near one of them.
With a necklace, length is only ever about where the chain sits. With a bracelet it is that as well — 19 and 22 cm sit quite differently on the same wrist, and people have firm preferences about which they want — but the fit question comes first, and it is the one a guess can get properly wrong.
55 cm suits the most people
It falls to the top of the chest, clear of a crew neck collar and comfortable in an open collar, and it suits more people than either 50 or 60 cm.
Go 60 cm instead if they are notably broad or tall, or if the chain you are choosing is 10 mm or wider — a wide chain at 50 cm sits high on the neck and can look constricted, where at 60 cm it has room to fall. Every width we offer is shown to scale in our chain thickness guide.
If you want to give a bracelet
There are good reasons to. The fine bracelets are the most accessible pieces we offer, and a bracelet is visible in a way a chain under a collar is not — they will see it on themselves all day. It is simply the one where measuring first pays off most.
The arithmetic is the same as for any bracelet: length minus their wrist is the room it has to move. A 19 cm bracelet is the one to take for a wrist up to about 18 cm; from 19 cm up the 19 will not close, so 22 cm is the size.
Within that there is a genuine choice of style, not just of fit. At an 18 cm wrist both lengths close — the 19 leaves 1 cm and sits near the wrist, the 22 leaves 4 cm and sits very low on the hand — and which of those someone wants is personal. That is the part you would normally ask about, and the part you cannot ask about here. Our bracelet sizing guide sets out exactly what each length gives at each wrist measurement.
If you cannot measure and you are set on a bracelet, take the 19 cm. On a finer wrist it sits with several centimetres of room, very low on the hand, which is how a lot of people prefer to wear one anyway — whereas a 22 cm on that same wrist is a great deal of bracelet.
One thing to know: wider bracelets wear closer to the wrist at the same stated length, because thicker links use up more of that length as they curve.
Finding out their size without asking
Three routes that do not give the game away:
- Measure something they already own. Lay a bracelet or chain of theirs flat and measure end to end, including the clasp. That number is the size to buy. This is by far the most reliable method.
- Ask someone close to them. A sibling, a partner, a friend.
- Take the sizes that suit the widest range of adults. 55 cm for a necklace, 19 cm for a bracelet.
Which style, if you do not know their taste
Style is a bigger risk than size, because it is the part they will actually have an opinion about.
- Cuban link is the chain most people picture when they imagine a silver chain, which makes it a safer guess than it first looks. At 6 mm it is an everyday piece rather than a statement — flat under a collar, and still unmistakably a chain. It is also the only one of the four whose clasp is part of the design, a box clasp finished to be seen rather than hidden at the back.
- Curb is the quieter of the two flat links. Its visible link rhythm keeps it looking like jewellery at any width, it suits any neckline, and it is the lighter of the two at a given width. Cuban link vs curb chain sets the pair side by side.
- Rope is the softest option — the twisted, faceted surface reads as less bold than a flat link at the same width, and it catches light as they move.
- Franco is the densest of the four for its width — narrow, square in profile and heavier than it looks, and it sits invisibly under a collar. Necklace only, so it is not an option if you have settled on a bracelet.
For width, 6 to 6,4 mm reads as substantial without being a decision they have to live with, and it is the easiest guess. If they already wear a chain, a 9,1 mm Cuban link or an 8,9 mm curb has real presence and is where people tend to go next. The wide Cuban links and heavy ropes are the pieces people ask for by name — if you know that is what they want, nothing else in the range lands the same way. Our four styles compared shows the differences side by side.
Where to start
The price for every size is on its own product page, and sorting a collection by price shows the range in order. Two things are worth knowing before you do.
The fine bracelets — a 4,6 mm rope or a 6,4 mm curb at 19 cm — are the most accessible pieces we offer. They are made exactly like the rest of the range, solid 925 sterling silver made in Italy, and differ only in how much silver is in them. That is also why a necklace costs meaningfully more than a bracelet at any width: it is simply around two and a half times the chain. Within a single style, wider or longer means more silver and a higher price.
Inside the box is a pouch, and the chain is inside the pouch. The pouch is also where it goes when it is not being worn.
What to add alongside it
A silver polishing cloth alongside the piece says you thought about it being kept, not just given. There is a pocket-sized cloth for travel as well. The full set is the cloth together with the silver dip — a liquid the chain is immersed in, which reaches tarnish that has settled down into the links where a cloth cannot go.
It is also genuinely useful. Sterling tarnishes — that is normal and reversible — and most people who receive silver as a gift have nothing to clean it with.
Getting it right first time
Ten minutes with this page and a tape measure is worth more than any amount of hoping. Measure something they own if you possibly can. If you cannot, a 55 cm necklace is the guess with the least riding on it.