How to Measure Your Wrist for a Bracelet

A bracelet and a bangle are sized differently, and using the wrong method is the most common reason one arrives too tight or too loose.

Measure the wrist

Wrap a soft tape or a strip of paper around the wrist, just below the wrist bone, where the bracelet will sit. Mark the overlap, lay the strip flat, and measure it.

That number is the wrist circumference. It is the starting point for both types, but each does something different with it.

Chain bracelet: add ease

A chain bracelet sits on the wrist and moves. It needs room to slide, or it binds against the skin.

Add roughly half an inch to the wrist measurement for a bracelet that moves comfortably. Add less for a closer fit, more for a looser drape. A heavier chain generally wants slightly more than a fine one, because it sits with more weight against the skin.

Bangle: the wrist number, not the hand

A hinged bangle opens at the clasp and closes around the wrist. It does not pass over the hand, so the hand measurement is irrelevant — measure the wrist itself and match it.

A rigid bangle with no hinge is different: it has to pass over the knuckles of a closed hand. For those, measure around the hand at its widest point with the thumb tucked in, and use that number instead.

Check which type you're buying. The product page states whether a bangle is hinged.

Measure at the right time

Wrists change size through the day and with temperature — smaller in the morning and in cold, larger by evening and in heat. Measure mid-afternoon at room temperature, or measure twice and take the average.

What can't be adjusted later

Some pieces are not resized after they're made:

• A bangle with relief running all the way around has no plain section to cut and rejoin.

• A chain with soldered links has no open link to remove; shortening means cutting and re-soldering, which breaks the finish at the join.

• A plated piece — gold vermeil or rhodium — loses its plating where it's cut, and the join can't be re-plated locally.

Each product page states which applies under Fit.

If the size is wrong

Return it within 30 days, shipping covered both ways, and order the correct one.