Magento Commerce

What is Pavé?

Pavé is the process of setting stones (notably rhinestones), where a number of small stones are set as closely together as possible. Taken from the French, the word is pronounced pa - bay. (The French word has an accent on the letter e.)  Better pieces use a claw setting. Less expensive pieces often have the stones simply glued in. The end result is what looks like a continuous surface of diamonds or other gems.

With the advent of so many people selling vintage jewelry online, there has become a real misuse of the term pave, so much so, in fact, that the word has incorrectly become nearly a ‘generic’ description of any piece of jewelry with a lot of rhinestones.

The original French word meant paving, in a similar manner to paving a street. If you think of this meaning, it will help to get a better picture of pave settings in your mind. The jewelry piece should be literally "paved" with stones or rhinestones, with as little metal as possible showing.

The word is also often used for a strip in a setting which is done in this same style. The strip will look like a little paved street, and is used as an accent, rather than covering the whole piece of jewelry. In this case, it can look similar to channel settings, but they are quite different. In a channel setting the stones are actually placed close together in one long channel. In pave, the stones each have their own little holding area the shape of the stone. The holding areas are just very close together.

Examples of jewelry with pavé rhinestones:

To view other articles on other vintage words, please visit the word of the week archives.

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