Part 1: India, Chapter 2: The Designs, The Hands, The Land

I work with lots of different workshops in India. Some are small, for example, Sushil, who works from his home, and Om and Arpit Prakash – father and son stone-cutters – who are similarly a family-run business. I met Om around the year 2000; he is the son of a farmer and learnt stone cutting when he was young. Om has a wonderful sensitivity to stones; he studies the stones to decide which cut is best, learning these skills over the years through knowledge passed down from elders.  

Born in Jaipur, Sushil and I have worked together for around 15 years. Sushil has been a goldsmith for 25 years, and learned his skills from his uncle Khen Raj, who was a master goldsmith. Sushil specialises in masterful hand work, we have spent many hours studying seeds, leaves and flowers to replicate minute miracles of nature in gold. Sushil has a wonderful instinctive sense of beauty, proportion, balance, and harmony in design. Other partners are bigger workshops, like Amrapali for instance. I’ve been working with these workshops for over twenty years in Jaipur.  

Fundamentally, I am very inspired by the way jewellery is perceived in India – it is seen not just as an adornment but woven into the culture of India through the Vedic healing systems and spiritual life of people and their sense of protection. In India, the gems and planets are interconnected with our fates and destinies; this way of looking at jewellery has been incredibly inspiring to me. I am also very inspired by the rural jewellery of Rajasthan, which contains elements of natural systems like flowers and fish in the design. Jewellery is woven into Indian culture through dance, music, poetry and temple art, and has been for thousands of years. Jewellery is part of India’s history.  

I have stayed in the same hotel in Rajasthan since I was seventeen, where there is the most beautiful garden. There are fruit trees filled with life, I often sit at the base of the trees and watch the constant movement of flora, fauna, and animals – it is teeming with life. There is such a sense of abundance of moving nature that inspires many of my designs.