Creation of a silver choker necklace

Chokers are quite popular necklaces for women, easy to wear they are more visible than the classic necklaces and pendants.

There are two types :

• Raised necklaces in the form of short chains (fr) with a length of 36 to 38 centimeters
• Rigid chokers

In the case of this jewel project custom made, it's a rigid necklace with a pendant and a charm, which we had the opportunity to manufacture in our jewelry workshop.

This is an ambitious project, a little complex that we took 8 weeks to achieve.

This project included 3 different achievements assembled in one jewel :

1. a rigid silver choker
2. a pendant set with zircons in the shape of a silver wing
3. a carved silver charm

You can see the final result of the project on this photo.

View of the finalized choker necklace

The manufacture of this necklace has made use of traditional techniques of benchpin work and cast iron as well as the latest jewelry techniques with the use of CAD and 3D printing.

We detail below how each piece of this necklace was made.

Ask for a quote for your choker project here.

Choker manufacture

For the realization of this piece we worked according to the design and the photos provided by our client since the latter knew exactly what he wanted.

The motif engraved on the silver choker was complex and repetitive, so the method of manufacture was as follows : we hand carved the motif in wax.

Then this wax was used to make this same silver piece.

We could then make a silicone mold and reproduce this piece several times in wax then giving us the length sufficient to reproduce the entire length of the choker.

Detailed view of the engraved pattern on the silver necklace that repeats itself along the length of the choker

These pieces were then cast in silver and assembled by welding to form the necklace as you can see in this picture taken during manufacture.

View of the necklace while the different pieces were welded together

As it is, the necklace is far from being finished since it remains to form it, to create the winding of flat wire in silver which makes it so characteristic and to create the closing system.

View of the rigid silver necklace during manufacture

The finish of the necklace consists of a thorough polishing of all the raised and recessed surfaces composing the patterns of the choker.

View showing the choker clasp and the engraved patterns on the necklace's body

Manufacture of the wing-shaped pendant

Given the complexity and size of the wing-shaped pendant (9 cm anyway), we opted for 3D printing to accurately reproduce the design of our client.

This pendant was modeled in CAD, printed in 3D and then made in silver by the process of casting with lost wax, giving this rendering :

View of the silver wing pendant before crimping zircons

This allowed us to move faster on the silver manufacture of the pendant and especially to precisely control the implementation of crimped zircons that you can see in the following image.

More than 40 zircons have been set on this wing-shaped pendant

The wing-shaped charm

For the latter, we started on a wax sculpture in hand and then casted it in silver.

It is 3 cm high and about 1 cm wide.

Zoomed view of silver wing charms mounting details of angel wing feathers

Final assembly of the parure

The last step was to assemble the three main elements, namely the charm and the pendant with the rigid necklace by a fine silver chain.

Here is how the necklace choker looks once worn :

Here are some examples of other silver choker necklaces that we had the opportunity to make in our jewelry workshop :

For further :

• Discover our different achievements of necklaces
• Discover our different achievements of custom pendants
• Discover more custom silver jewelry creations
• Our custom jewelry creation service