Lab Grown White Sapphire Tennis Necklace with Emerald

What You're Actually Getting

A tennis necklace is one of the few jewelry formats that communicates luxury immediately — it's the silhouette that shows up on red carpets, in old Vogue spreads, draped over black turtlenecks in every aspirational Instagram flat lay. Aurate's version adds a center emerald to the formula: a lab-grown green stone encircled by 13 total carats of lab-grown white sapphires set in vermeil. On paper, that's a lot. In practice, it lands exactly the way you want it to — the green-and-white combination reads rich without being garish, and the total carat weight gives the piece a presence that shows up whether you're wearing it with a plunging neckline or layered under a blazer.

On the Lab-Grown Stones

Lab-grown doesn't mean fake — it means the same chemical composition as the mined version, grown in a controlled environment. White sapphires are corundum (the same family as rubies), and they sparkle differently than diamonds: less prismatic fire, more of a clean white flash. That distinction matters if you're expecting diamond-like brilliance. If you're expecting a sophisticated, icy sparkle that photographs beautifully, white sapphires deliver. The lab-grown emerald at the center brings color — genuinely green, not the yellowish tinge you sometimes get with lower-grade natural stones. Aurate is transparent about their sourcing, and the ethical argument here is straightforward: no mining, no conflict, and the visual result is the same.

The Vermeil Conversation

This is the one place we'll ask you to go in with open eyes. Vermeil is sterling silver with a gold plating layer — Aurate's tends to be thicker than fast-fashion vermeil, but it is still a plating. With daily wear, particularly if your skin chemistry runs acidic or you frequently apply lotions and perfumes before putting on jewelry, the gold layer will eventually show wear, especially on high-contact points like chain links. That's not a knock on Aurate specifically — it's the honest nature of vermeil at any price point. Store it in its pouch, keep it away from water, and put it on last. Treated well, it holds up impressively. Treated carelessly, no vermeil piece survives.

Styling Notes

The emerald-and-white combination has a very specific register: it's glamour, full stop. This is not the necklace you throw on to run errands. It's the necklace that makes a simple slip dress look like a choice, or that turns a white button-down into a statement. Aurate's silhouette sits long enough to work with most necklines — we'd reach for it with a V-neck, a square neck, or bare skin at a summer event. The unisex designation is genuine: the piece reads clean on any body, any presentation.

The Bottom Line on Price

Natural sapphire-and-emerald tennis necklaces with comparable carat weight run into thousands — sometimes tens of thousands. At $548, Aurate is pricing for the market that wants the look and the ethics without the geological markup. Whether that feels like a value depends entirely on how you feel about lab-grown stones. We think it's a genuinely good deal for what you're getting.