Lab Grown Green Emerald Teardrop Tennis Necklace

What It Is

Aurate New York built its reputation on making fine jewelry feel accessible without making it feel cheap, and this teardrop tennis necklace is one of the cleaner expressions of that mission. The design strings lab-grown green emerald drops — vivid, deeply saturated — alongside white sapphire accents in a yellow vermeil setting. At 16 inches it sits right at the collarbone: high enough to read as deliberate, low enough to layer if you want to go full maximalist.

The Stones

Lab-grown emeralds are chemically and optically identical to their mined counterparts — same crystal structure, same color, same hardness. What you're not paying for is rarity and the supply-chain premium that comes with it. The green here reads rich and genuine rather than costume-jewelry electric. Paired with white sapphires (not diamonds — worth knowing), the contrast is clean. White sapphires have less fire than diamonds but they hold up well in a design that's already doing most of its work through color rather than sparkle.

Construction and Wear

Vermeil is gold plating over sterling silver — the gold layer is meaningfully thicker than standard gold-fill or gold-plated brass, but it is still a surface treatment, not solid gold. At $1,148 that's worth sitting with. The flip side: the base is sterling silver, so if the vermeil does eventually wear at contact points, you're not left with bare brass. Weight comes in at 0.11 lb, which tracks light-to-moderate for a statement necklace — nothing that drags uncomfortably by the end of a long night.

The 16-inch length is worth measuring against your own collarbone before ordering. On a longer neck or a larger frame it may sit slightly shorter than a classic collarbone length; on a petite frame it'll likely land exactly where you'd want it.

Occasion and Styling

This is not a background piece. The teardrop silhouette and the depth of the green make it the lead — which means it works best with necklines that give it room: a deep V, a silk slip, an off-shoulder. Wear it to a dinner where you want to be noticed without trying obviously hard. It photographs extremely well, which isn't a trivial consideration.

We'd hesitate to make it a daily driver. Vermeil and water don't mix, and a stone-laden tennis necklace that goes on at the gym or catches hand lotion regularly will show wear faster than a simple gold chain. Treat it like a going-out piece and it should hold for years.

The Price Honest Take

$1,148 is serious money. In the context of mined-emerald fine jewelry at this scale of coverage, it's competitive. Compared to other vermeil-construction lab-stone pieces, it's toward the top of the range — you're paying in part for Aurate's brand, their quality controls, and their ethical sourcing commitments. If you want solid gold, the cost jumps significantly. If you want something that looks like this for $200, the construction won't be there. This sits in the defensible middle.