Layering looks effortless in photographs because the photographs took twenty minutes and a stylist. Worn on an actual day, chains twist, pendants collide, and the shortest one rides up. Most of that is fixable at the point you choose the lengths.
Length decides everything
We offer our chains at 14, 16 and 18 inches, and those three sit quite differently.
A 14 inch chain sits high, close around the base of the neck. A 16 inch chain generally lands at or just above the collarbone. An 18 inch chain falls just below it, into the hollow at the base of the throat.
Those are guides rather than promises, because neck size varies more than people assume. If you own a chain you like the position of, measure it and work from that number instead.
Two inches is the minimum gap
Chains sitting closer than about two inches apart will find each other and twist. Two inches is workable, three is comfortable, and four starts to read as two separate necklaces rather than a layered look.
Our three lengths are two inches apart by design, so 14 with 16, or 16 with 18, both work. Taking 14 and 18 together gives you four inches and room for a third chain in the middle.
Vary the weight as well as the length
Two chains of identical weight at different lengths look like an accident. The eye reads it as one necklace that has gone wrong.
Give them different jobs instead. A fine chain with a small pendant under a flat, heavier chain reads as deliberate. So does a plain chain above a diamond station one, where the plain chain frames rather than competes.
The rule of thumb is that one of them should clearly be the main event.
Pendants need thinking about
Two pendants on adjacent chains will end up in the same place, because gravity gives them no other option. Either keep pendants to one chain, or make sure the lengths are far enough apart that they hang at genuinely different heights.
A heavier pendant also drags its chain lower than the same chain worn empty, so a pendant necklace usually sits a little longer than its stated length suggests.
Necklines
A high neckline wants short. Anything sitting at or below the collarbone disappears under a crew neck and spends the day being adjusted.
A V or a scoop is where layering works best, since the neckline itself gives the shortest chain a frame and the longest one somewhere to fall.
Off the shoulder is the awkward one. There is a lot of exposed skin and no line to work against, so a single chain with something worth looking at usually beats three.
Tangling, practically
Clasps migrate to the back of the neck and knot together. If two clasps sit at the same height they will find each other within a day.
Choosing lengths that differ by two inches or more keeps the clasps apart, which solves most of it. Storing them separately rather than together in one dish solves nearly all of the rest.
If you are ordering more than one chain and want them to work as a set, tell us the lengths you are considering and what you already own. It is easier to get right before they are made than to fix afterwards.