The Adjustable Chain Blog · Grace Blooms Adjustable Chains
One Chain, Four Lengths: 14, 18, 20 and 24 Inches on the Same Necklace
I want to show you something that took me a long time to work out for myself.
For a long time I solved the necklace length problem by buying more necklaces. A short one for tee shirts. A longer one for sweaters. Something in between for church. They lived in a drawer, they tangled, and most mornings I wore the same one anyway because it was the one on top.
One adjustable chain replaces four of those. Not four in a vague way. Four specific lengths, 14 inches, 18 inches, 20 inches and 24 inches, on one chain, set by you, in about three seconds.
Let me walk you through what each of those four lengths actually does, how to move between them without hurting the chain, and how to pick the one setting you will live in.
The four lengths, on a real woman
Numbers on a page do not tell you much. Eighteen inches means nothing until you see where eighteen inches lands. So here are all four, shot on a person, in a real shirt, wearing the chain you would actually buy.
14 inches
High on the neck, right at the base of the throat. This is your collar setting. It sits above almost every neckline, so it works when there is something else going on down front, like a scarf, a zipper, or a printed blouse you do not want to compete with. Wear it bare. A pendant at 14 inches gets crowded.
18 inches
Just below the collarbone. If you own one necklace, it is probably this length, because it is what nearly everything ships at. It is the setting I use most. It sits above the neckline of a crew neck tee, it fills the top of a V, and a small pendant hangs beautifully here.
20 inches
Below the collarbone, above the bust. This is the setting I think gets underused. Two extra inches sounds like nothing, and it changes the whole look. It is what I set for a button-down shirt, because it lands below the last open button instead of disappearing behind the placket.
24 inches
Down on the chest, over the top of a sweater. This is the setting for layers, for turtlenecks, for anything with a high neck, and for a bigger pendant that needs room to hang. It is also the setting that lets you get dressed without touching the clasp, and I will come back to that in a minute.
The old jewelry names map onto these roughly: collar, princess, matinee, opera. I stopped using them years ago. Nobody stands in front of a mirror thinking about the opera. They think, this is too short for this sweater.
The move that gets you between them
There is a small gasket on the chain. That gasket is what holds your length. To change the length, you hold the gasket in one hand and pull the chain through with the other.
Here's the part that matters, and it's the part I get asked about most. Pull straight through. Never at an angle.
I don't just yank on it. I take hold of the chain close to the gasket, not out at the pendant, and I draw it straight. Pull it at an angle and you are working against the chain instead of with it, and over enough mornings that is how a chain gets tired. Straight through, and it will keep holding your length for years.
To go longer, you pull in the other direction. Same rule. Straight through, close to the gasket.
That's the entire technique. It takes longer to read than to do.
Getting dressed without going near the clasp
Set the chain out to 24 inches and it goes over your head. Then you pull it down to whatever length you actually want to wear.
So if you have ever stood in front of a mirror with your arms up behind your neck, fighting a tiny clasp, getting your hair caught in it, giving up and asking someone else to do it, I have been there too. That's the morning this chain is built for. You never have to get behind your own neck again.
Two honest notes about that.
First, it is the length that makes it work, not the chain being special. A chain that only reaches 22 inches will not go over an adult head, and I won't tell you it does. The over the head trick belongs to our chains that reach 24 inches and up. If a chain maxes out shorter than that, it is still adjustable, it still holds four looks, you just put it on the usual way.
Second, there's a clasp. A real lobster clasp, right there on the chain. I'm not going to pretend it doesn't exist. You just never have to use it to get dressed. What the clasp is for is pendants, and that is the next good part.
One chain, and then everything you hang on it
Open the clasp, slide a pendant on, close it. Thirty seconds. Now the same chain is a different necklace.
This is where the four lengths start compounding. Four settings, and any pendant from your charm drawer, and one chain does more work than the four you were going to buy.
Two things to check before you hang something on it. Look at the loop on the back of the pendant and make sure the chain and the clasp will actually pass through it. And match the weight. A heavy pendant on a fine chain drags the chain out of its line and sits crooked all day, so give a big piece a chain with some substance and keep the small ones on something fine.
Which setting for what you are wearing
Here is my whole cheat sheet. Five situations, because five covers most weeks.
- Crew neck tee. 18 inches, small pendant. It sits above the collar and does not fight the fabric.
- V neck. 18 or 20 inches. You want the chain to follow the V, not cut across it. The wider the V, the more room a pendant has.
- Button-down shirt. 20 inches, so it lands just below the last open button. This is the one that surprises people.
- Sweater or turtleneck. 24 inches, over the top. A high neck already has a lot happening, so give the necklace its own space lower down.
- Something dressy. 14 or 18 inches, bare, no pendant. When the dress is doing the work, the necklace should hold the line at your throat and stop.
If you want the full picture, including the longer lengths past 24 inches, I shot every one of them on the same woman in this length guide.
About the extra chain down your back
When you pull the chain shorter, the extra length hangs down your back. That's the one thing people ask me about before they buy, so let me get ahead of it.
It hangs pretty. It falls straight down the back of your neck and it moves when you move. I have had people tell me they noticed the little chain coming down the back, and that it was pretty, and that has happened enough times now that I stopped thinking of it as the tradeoff. It is part of the look. If you set the chain long, there is barely any tail at all.
When one chain is not enough
I'm not going to tell you one chain covers everything, because it doesn't.
If you wear a lot of heavy knits, or you like a necklace that sits low over a sweater, go to the 30 inch. It gives you the whole range down to a short setting and adds the long looks the 24 inch cannot reach.
If you like to layer, you need two. That's just true. Two chains at two different settings is the layered look, and you can't fake it with one. There is a gold and silver set for that, and layering the two metals together is an easy place to start.
And if you already own a necklace you love that is a hair too short, an extender solves that without buying another chain.
Buying one for someone else
This is the reason I keep coming back to the four lengths.
When you buy a fixed necklace for your mother, or your daughter, or a friend, you are guessing at a number. You get one shot at 18 inches and you find out on her birthday whether 18 inches was right. An adjustable chain takes the guess out of it, because she sets it where she wants it, on her own, the first morning she wears it.
That matters more than it sounds like it should. Nobody wants to open a gift and then need help putting it on.
Where to start
If you are buying your first one, take the 24 inch. It gives you all four settings, it goes over your head, and it holds a pendant at any of them. Gold or silver, whichever you already wear.
We have sold millions of this style of chain over the years, and it stays the one women come back for. Not because it is the fanciest thing we make. Because it is the one that gets worn.
And you can't really get the length wrong, which is the quiet part. Order a fixed 18 inch necklace and you find out on the day whether 18 was right. With this one you set it in front of your own mirror and move it whenever you change your mind.
Pull it straight through until it sits where you want it. That's the whole thing. One chain, four lengths, and that perfect length every single morning.