Rhinestone, cubic zirconia, plated brass: what bridal jewellery is made of

Before a confirmation call ends, the same question arrives in the same words: is it real? Almost nobody types it into a search box, and almost everybody asks it out loud. The honest answer is not yes or no. It is a vocabulary — four words the Algerian trade uses every day, and three materials that do not stand in for one another.

The four words the trade keeps apart

• Fontizi (الفونتيزي, from the French fantaisie) — a piece made to look like gold. The word describes an intention and a look, not a material.
• Blakiour (البلاكيور, from placage) — the word for the process itself: a finish laid over a base metal. It does not say which base; the product page does. This is what we sell.
• Mqallad (المقلّد) — a piece sold as something it is not. Not a material: a way of selling.
• Bronze (البرونز) — the trade's word for the silver-and-bronze alloy of traditional Turkish pieces. We do not import them.

The distinction that matters is between the second and the third. Blakiour is a description; mqallad is a transaction. The same object can be both at once, when the seller knows what it is and lets you believe otherwise.

Why the fontizi market grew

The Algerian press gave the figure in June 2026: a simple gold parure now costs more than 300,000 DA, and demand has moved to fontizi and to rental. The buyers it names are brides-to-be, women who want several outfits without the bill that comes with them, and households on modest and middle incomes. Fontizi is no longer a fallback; it is a market with its own workshops, wholesalers and seasons. A market that grows quickly without disciplined vocabulary is exactly where mqallad lives.

Rhinestone, faceted glass, cubic zirconia

• A rhinestone is a piece of glass cut with facets, set into metal or laid on a reflective backing. Part of its sparkle comes from that backing rather than from the cut alone — it is an assembly more than a stone.
• Cubic zirconia is a different material: lab-grown zirconium dioxide with a real crystalline structure, its hardness given at roughly 8 to 8.5 on the Mohs scale.
• An imitation pearl is a bead finished with a pearlised coating. Our pages write «perles d'imitation» in French and «اللؤلؤ التقليد» in Arabic — the imitation named, in both languages.

The tikka above answers on its «Material» row: «rhinestones and a crystal or zirconia drop».

The taj answers on a different row. Its «Stones» line reads «Faceted glass rhinestones». A page that tells you which of the three you are buying has told you something. A page that only says «stones» has told you nothing.

No brand name appears anywhere here, and that is not an omission. Turkish bridal jewellery is unbranded wholesale: you buy on plating quality and leave under your own label. So we have no stone maker and no glass maker to name, and we will not name one for decoration.

The base metal, and where we say zinc

There is a metal under the finish, and it is not decorative. Our buying rule in Istanbul is one line long: plated brass, never zinc alloy. Brass is heavier and holds plating better.

And the honest half: not every piece here is brass. The veil combs are plated zinc alloy — their description says it outright. The taj is a cast metal alloy, plated. On the sets, the «Metal» row adds a word: «Usually plated zinc alloy» for the combs, «Usually a plated metal alloy» for the bun pins — and that «usually» is there because a set of six or of thirty is a set, not a single piece. What does not change is that every page states it, one by one. «Never zinc alloy» is true of the jewellery; across the whole catalogue it would be false, and we will not write it.

No hallmark, and no ten-year promise

Algeria runs its own precious-metals guarantee regime: articles in precious metal, made locally or imported, are presented to the guarantee offices of the tax administration, which affix a hallmark before sale. A hallmark marks precious metal. These pieces are not precious metal, which is exactly why they cost what they cost — so there is no hallmark to look for on a fontizi piece, and a seller showing you one on a plated piece is showing you something else. In listings, «لون ذهبي» (gold colour) and «طلاء ذهبي» (gold plating) both mean plated, and the marks GP, HGE and GEP say the same thing.

A 2016 Algerian report recorded sellers advertising ten years of cover on costume jewellery. We do not, and here is the reason rather than the apology: plating is a thin layer, and it meets sweat, perfume, hairspray and friction across a whole night of tasdira. Plating dulls with wear. That is the nature of the product, not a defect.

What we do instead: the metal and the stone are written on every product page in three languages, and you open the parcel before you pay. There are no four magic rows here — our pages do not all carry the same ones, because a set of pins and a three-piece parure do not raise the same questions. Two things are on every page: the row that names the material, «Material» on some and «Metal» on others, and the «Provenance» block, which says where the piece comes from and under whose label. The stone is named too, in different places — under «Stones» on the parure, the taj and the earrings, under «Decoration» on the pins, inside «Material» on the khit errouh and the tikka. Read them before the photograph. The longer answer about what plated means in daily use, how to store it and how to keep it between weddings, is in our FAQ.