Baguette? Clutch? Five Words You Didn't Know Were Also Jewelry TermsThere are a lot of words that we think of when we think of jewelry, but there are a lot of other jewelry words that you're probably more familiar with in other contexts. Here's a list of words you probably had no idea were used to talk about jewelry!

Baguette – You may think of a long loaf of French bread, but in jewelry, a baguette is a gem cut into a small rectangular shape. Baguettes are usually used as accents for other stones, and they're usually step cut, which means they have one large facet surrounded by smaller, rectangular facets.

Clutch – This word may make you think of either a car part, a small purse with no strap or handle, or an athlete who always comes through in a tricky situation, but in jewelry, a clutch is an attachment used to secure a piece of jewelry, such as an earring back or a lapel pin back.

Doublet – You've probably seen paintings of doublets – short, close-fitting jackets with high collars – worn by European men during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In jewelry, however, the doublet is still in use as any item made by attaching two separate components with a transparent glue or adhesive. For example, opals are often turned into doublets by attaching them to a backing of ironstone, black plastic, or quartz to help bring out the opal's natural colors.

Matinee – Matinee is a common show business term for a movie or play seen in the morning or early afternoon. In jewelry, though, it is a necklace that is twenty to twenty-five inches long, resting between the collarbone and the décolletage, an ideal choice for a formal occasion. The term is usually used in reference to a string of pearls, although it can refer to any necklace of the appropriate length.

Orient – This word is used when describing the position of an object, and it was used historically to refer to eastern Asia, but it's another pearl word when we speak about jewelry. The nacre inside a mollusk that layers over an irritant to form a pearl contain miniscule, light-reflecting crystals. When there are enough layers of nacre and the crystals align just right, the light they reflect creates a prismatic effect on the surface of the pearl, much the way colors appear in an oil slick on water. The rainbow-like effect is refered to as the pearls' orient.

At Copeland Jewelers, your Austin jewelry store, we're all about everything that has to do with jewelry, even if it has to do with other things too! If you have any questions about jewelry terms, call us or come in today. And if you're interested in designing a piece of jewelry that uses any of the words defined here, let us know, because we love to create Austin custom jewelry!

Copeland JewelersDavenport village3801 N Capital of Texas HwyAustin, TX 78746https://copelandjewelers.com/