New Delhi - At Bharany's, a family-run jewelry company in New Delhi's upscale Sunder Nagar neighborhood, a client came in recently with a 70-year-old turban pin— typically worn by a groom on his wedding day—studded with white sapphires and small emeralds.

Bharath Ramamrutham
A19th-century rakodi, or hair ornament, from southern India. The larger piece measures about eight centimeters across; the smaller one, about five. They were fixed on a bun on the top or side of the head, or pinned directly to the hair.
Called a "kalgi," after the Persian word for a heron's plume, the feather-shaped ornament was crafted in Rajasthan in a style harking back to the Mughal court's princely custom of sporting impressive gems on their turbans. The client's request: Find some new use for the inherited pin, as it had been languishing in a bank safety-deposit box for the past 20 years.

In the hands of 45-year-old jeweler Mahesh Bharany, the pin was turned upside down and reborn for modern dinner-party wear as a woman's pendant suspended on three strands of pearls and emeralds.

Women in India "want more things they can wear today and make a statement. Something that will make them stand out," says Mr. Bharany, who adds that many similar requests to remodel inherited jewelry are coming his way these days.

India boasts a trove of inherited jewelry. It's a natural legacy of a land rich in gemstones and a culture that's infused with an enduring dowry tradition, a deep-rooted passion for gold and age-old beliefs in the protective powers of certain jewels, according to Usha Balakrishnan, author of "Dance of the Peacock," an illustrated history of 5,000 years of Indian jewelry.

Bharath Ramamrutham
A 19th-century kalgi, or turban ornament, from northern India. This traditional piece, set with diamonds and emeralds, has been adapted to be worn as a pendant.
Of course, fashions change. To keep up, some members of India's royal families didn't shy away from updating centuries-old pieces in their efforts to reach the pinnacles of style. In the 1920s and 1930s, for example, the country's gem-besotted maharajahs made a beeline for Europe and called on leading jewelers such as Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels to reset their heirloom pieces.

Today, with new wealth pumping up India's party circuit, more super-rich, rich and even middle-class people who have inherited or purchased select pieces are updating their traditional jewels. Many of these pieces aren't the exceedingly rare, pricey antiques from previous centuries, though these kinds of ornaments are occasionally getting retooled as well. Rather, most are 30-to-90-year-old traditional pieces—turban pins dripping with diamonds, nose rings laden with pearls and hair ornaments studded with rubies. These outmoded pieces, which typically hibernate in storage except for the occasional wearing at weddings, are being transformed into more practical, wearable accessories.

Women "want to use whatever they have," says Arjun Jain of Padma Gems, a 150-year-old high-end jeweler in New Delhi, whose clients typically wait three months for a refashioned item and pay between $1,000 and $2,000.

Chobiwala & Co.
A padakam (pendant) was joined with a thali (a traditional wedding necklace given as a gift to the bride by the groom) to make this choker. Its design was inspired by southern Indian temple architecture.
In most cases, these reconstructions aren't a mad dash to melt down all the gold, pluck out the precious stones and order an entirely modern accessory.

Thanks to a renewed appreciation for the style of India's heritage jewelry, many women and their daughters are choosing careful modifications.

Take, for instance, Asha Bansal, a 52-year-old New Delhi-based fashion designer whose father was a jewelry buff. Last November,Ms. Bansal converted a thick bracelet laden with Colombian emeralds, which she describes as a century-old piece her father obtained at auction froma royal family in Rajasthan. The 30 emeralds, all eight-carat baguettes, were "wasted in a bracelet," says Ms. Bansal, who thought "something closer to my face would be more eye-catching."

Her jeweler sketched five options, most of them ornate designs that required additional jewels and a platinum setting. In the end,Ms. Bansal opted for a design of a more delicate oval necklace with the emeralds encircled by diamonds that reflected the gemstones' royal history. The diamonds came from another piece from her father's collection—a 50-year-old pair of diamond-and-emerald earrings that she deemed "too traditional to get any mileage out of."