Image: Gyan, Jaipur
In the early 1950’s, Bombay jeweller Nanubhai Jhaveri came in possession of jewels sparkling with massive polki (un-faceted) diamonds offloaded by royal families that had become bankrupt after the dissolution of princely states . Faceting them into table-cut baguettes, Jhaveri collaborated with his design protégé – Ambaji Venkatesh Shinde, a bangle-seller’s son from Goa armed with a JJ School of Art textile design degree – to create a limited edition of scroll necklaces, painstakingly grading the baguettes in a tapered manner to ‘roll’ up like parchment. The technically marvellous design caught the eye of Harry Winston, who met Shinde while buying the necklace in Bombay. Seven years later, 44-year old Shinde landed in New York, eventually becoming head designer for the storied American jeweller. Creating masterpieces for celebrities — from Queen Elizabeth II and Egypt’s King Farouk to Elizabeth Taylor, Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow. For over four decades, the boy from Mapusa blazed a trail of iconic designs, gaining industry-insider cult status while remaining an aesthete and fearless innovator at heart.
His lifelong passion for experimentation stands out in India’s formidable jewellery-crafting legacy that reveres traditional techniques and a glorious but boxed-in design oeuvre. To date, even if they are a drop in the ocean of India’s massive jewellery market, Shinde’s spiritual inheritors continue to challenge mainstream design sensibilities and craft scintillating new legacies.
Visionary Superstars
From the diamond-dripping excess of Delhi and Mumbai respectively, two unorthodox designers have long been darlings of jewellery aficionados across the world. Descendent of the royal family of Kapurthala, Hanut Singh marries his diverse influences– European art, art deco architecture and Mughal craftsmanship – with a free-spirited design philosophy that’s in a class of its own. Retailing through niche international ateliers and annual trunk shows, his signature talismanic daggers, shark-tooth motifs pendants and flamboyant earrings adorn the likes of Nicole Kidman, Beyonce and Meryl Streep. Perhaps Ambaji Shinde’s East-meets-West sensibility – and reclusive enigma – shines brightest in Viren Bhagat’s refined jewels. Jewellery historian, author and former jewellery director of British Vogue, Carol Woolton places the elite Mumbai-based jeweller in her list of avant-garde designers, that also includes Taffin’s James de Givenchy and Claire Chosen, Creative Director of French maison Boucheron. “In Bhagat’s hands, a simple daisy flower with a yellow central diamond and rising lozenge shaped diamond petals is like no jewelled flower you’ve seen before,” she exults. It helps the cause of rule-breaking fine jewellery that the gem whisperer’s work rakes in big bucks. (In 2019, three Bhagat originals including a rare natural diamond and emerald bead brooch, sold for INR 1.78 crore (USD 212,500) three times their estimates at Christie’s ‘Maharajas & Mughal Magnificence’ auction in New York.)
Staying Ahead of the Curve
While Singh and Bhagat have already created international waves, there are a few younger avant-garde fine jewellers experimenting in the wings. From its South Mumbai atelier, under-the-radar brand Sajjante’s Sajil Shah crafts eloquent jewels using techniques like Regatta, a silk-like effect created by carved lines in gold, and the honeycomb-like lace texture of Nido di Vespa. From a private salon in London’s Mayfair, Krishna Choudhary of Santi Jewels – another top contender on Woolton’s contemporary designer hotlist – creates starkly engineered pieces including “a deceptively simple flower pendant featuring Mughal spinels and Golconda diamonds suspended from black silk cord” selected for a Sotheby’s show in New York.
Innovation isn’t restricted only to designers. Pockets of innovation spring within storied, legacy brands in competitive markets. Akhil Dhadda, creative director of Jaipur-based Gem Plaza – a name to be reckoned in the coloured jewellery segment – is bullish on balancing creativity and innovation with market demands. A finance graduate with a master’s degree in brand management from London, Akhil stepped into the family business around the time that Gyan, their contemporary brand spin-off was born. His vision for Gyan is driven by story-led, inspiration-based design. “Our jewels are inspired by the architecture and customs of the Pink City, creating one-of-a-kind contemporary heirlooms. Buyers invest not just in a jewel, but a wealth of culture and history,” he avers.
Image: Gyan
The D2C brand’s modernist, curious and playful approach to design is deeply inspired by Akhil’s grandfather, naturalist, collector and gemologist Gyan Chand Dhaddha, whose private collection of rare, eclectic jewels, textile and objets d’art is housed in one of Jaipur’s best kept secrets, the family-run Gyan Museum. “We’ve taken textural and embroidery references from the museum collection,” says Akhil referring to their Aravali collection which echoes the enamelling and ornamental patterns from the envious collection of royal hookah mouthpieces from the museum. Crafted in 18kt gold with lapis, onyx, pink opal, malachite and mother of pearl, the collection debuted at Couture, Las Vegas 2023, alongside gold lattice-worked jewels from the Sarai collection inspired by Rajasthan’s iconic jalis.
While Gyan delights customers with bespoke creations – Akhil recalls a mismatched pair of ombre-effect shoulder dusters crafted from an ensemble of pastel-hued sapphires for a client with eccentric taste – it tempers design ambition with the efficiency-driven model of large-scale production at their factory. “We play with techniques, while keep practical considerations in mind. Despite some challenges in sourcing cutting and re-cutting gemstones, we seek out tanzanites, morganites, cats eye, opals, rare Paraiba tourmalines and collector’s gems like imperial topaz and spessartite garnets, unlike traditional Indian jewellers. I’ve always been particular about taking control of the end-to-end process from the first stage of CAD to setting and finishing, with strictly-monitored regular checkpoints. Once the process is mastered, the most avant-garde design can be produced efficiently.”
The Jeweller As Uncompromising Artist
While experimenting with form, technique and provenance is a given, there are very few designers who entirely subvert the very notion of fine jewellery. Six-year-old Mumbai-based Studio Renn (the name originates from the Latin word for rebirth) founded by husband-wife duo Rahul and Roshni Jhaveri collaborates with artists and sculptors to craft inventive, conceptual fine jewels with unexpected diamond placements. Last year, they were invited to showcase over 40 pieces from their Seed Leaf and edgy, matte black-finished gold Cacti lines – at Bergdorf Goodman’s Fifth Avenue salon in NYC.
Image: Studio Renn
“We believe that we exist in a space between art and design,” says Roshni, who handles all business aspects of the brand. “Our work is functional yet has a purpose beyond function. That’s a non-negotiable aspect. Over time that is what we are known for and collectors seek it out in us. Our work isn’t for everyone and not everyone is for us. And that’s a good thing.” Married for 15 years, the couple started Studio Renn in 2018 with a series of simple rings designed using actions like squeezing and twisting. Ever since, they admit that most of their experiments have failed. “We believe that if something comes easy, it’s not worth doing. If you end up with exactly the same idea you conceptualized, then you’ve done something wrong,” says Rahul, creative head of the studio. Technically trained in his family’s diamond manufacturing business, he has an appreciation of material – with a soft spot for rough and octahedral diamonds – exploring them in ways that would be considered blasphemous in traditional manufacturing. “Growing up surrounded by diamonds enabled me to express myself creatively in my childhood,” he smiles. “The business was incidental; if my family were paper manufactures, I’d be making paper sculptures.”
Studio Renn’s creative consciousness is all encompassing, spanning traditional techniques like wax carving, ink on paper and CAD, 3D scanning and printing, to CNC machines while incorporating unconventional tools like clay, paper models or paper clip wires. The duo is currently excited about their woodwork experiments, using discarded pieces of wood, 18k grey gold cast from sculpted wax and freeform special-cut diamonds. Elaborating on their material agnosticism – a rarity among Indian designers – Rahul has always been enthusiastic about reacting to certain perceptions of value and purpose that all materials bring with them, whether gold, diamonds, concrete, ceramic or paper
Investing in the Iconoclasts
In October 2021, Studio Renn was part of a 16-designer group curated for British auction house Phillips’ New Modernism exhibition. In an earlier time, it may have been unimaginable that their Strangler Ring – an audacious acid-treated concrete piece reinforced with blackened 18K grey gold and brilliant-cut diamond – crafted in collaboration with Mumbai-based architectural firm Material Immaterial Studio, would go under the hammer. But their bold and often risqué high jewels are a draw for a new generation of investors, together challenging the conventional jewellery rule book. “There’s a certain psychographic amongst our collectors,” notes Rahul, stressing that they’re early adopters of a new idiom; a set of people who otherwise don’t resonate with jewellery, but are drawn to work unlike anything that they’ve seen or experienced before. “They’re curious, open to new design concepts and a bolder sensibility even though it may not initially seem like that. They’re willing to step out of their comfort zone and become part of a journey instead of merely focussing on an end product,” he adds. He recollects the journey of a couple who were gifted large heirloom diamonds for their engagement. “They came to us for designs where the diamonds were understated and not the centrepiece of the rings as they typically are. We suggested concealing diamonds partially. That way, they could wear them all the time, yet stay true to their own personalities and lifestyle.”
For the Jhaveris, their collectors aren’t valuing gold and diamonds. “Perception of the collector is defined by the kind of shows and fairs we exhibit our work at, which automatically contextualizes the work. If the same piece was shown at a jewellery showroom, that puts you into a mind space of valuing a piece only by the materials,” says Roshni. More often than not, it’s also an intensely collaborative investment. She recalls a ring they made for a collector with a large five carat marquise solitaire ‘embedded’ inside their pave set Seed Ring. Valuing these jewels as symbols of a cultural zeitgeist – over and above their fiscal value – a new crop of equally audacious collectors and designers are slowly but definitively changing India’s fine jewellery landscape
For both, the risk is the reward.
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