Here’s a something for you; something we are good at. A complete process for a custom design jewelry we made for our patron Shruti.
Shruti has a great sense of style and is aware of her own sensibilities. She’s well traveled and is inclined towards ‘art’. Her only design brief to me was about making a neck-piece that was inspired from ancient Egyptian jewelry but with a unique take on it. Of course, it had to be a statement piece.
While starting with design, it was very important to keep Shruti’s individuality in mind. Besides the fact that Egyptian motifs played an important role in the design, at no point could the design idea be overpowering the person who was suppose to wear it. It had to reflect who she herself was - poised, confident and composed.
The concept of the neck-piece came from the bib-collar of Cleopatra and all the other visual reminders of Egypt - the cyprus leaves, the Eye of Horus, the hieroglyphs, etc. But putting them together to form a complete asymmetry in layout and playing around with patterns was a great challenge. While I love bugs, especially the Egyptian dung beetle, Shruti wasn't quite comfortable with it! So after a to and fro a couple of times, we finalised on design and mutually decided to use silver and brass as materials to make it.
This has been one of the most challenging pieces we have done in the studio. The interplay of form along with motifs and material mix made it pretty difficult to get together individual elements of the design. While we were at it, I would be eternally thankful to Shruti for completely believing in me and my team and being extremely patient.
(Note - sometimes it does take more time than we estimate as it is a design we are making for the first and last time and there would be a lot of hitches which we may encounter)
The entire process has been documented to see the progress from concept to design to product development.
Here is what Shruti has to say about her experience of commissioning a piece of jewelry to Chicory Chai. "Even contemporary comes with a twist at Chicory Chai, which is precisely why I was tempted to ask them to make a unique piece for me. The only lead from my side was that it should be on the Egyptian theme. The best thing about the making of the piece was that, I was always kept informed about the product right from the designing stage to the end product. My search for a bespoke, one of a kind statement piece ended at Chicory Chai. Happy to be flaunting a Chicory Chai."
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