The first ‘AS’ high jewellery collection has been inspired by my frequent trips to my grandparents in Jaipur and Indore (India) during my childhood. The winter trips to India were a mixture of spending time with my family and also exploring different parts of India. Art in India has evolved over centuries and different cultures and regions have contributed in their own unique way to its history and continual growth. I feel that India is one of the select places where I can study this wide variety of art forms and incorporate ideas into my designs. I belong to a family where we can trace our history to more than ten generations through photographs and family heirlooms. Studying these heirlooms has helped me to understand the power of narrative in elevating the significance of the object. When visiting Jaipur from an early age it was a combination of visiting beautiful historical monuments and my families textiles factories. I was always amazed by the colourful fabrics and interesting ways of printing such as block printing. From a young age I would sketch out the patterns represented on the wooden blocks or textiles, which I have focused on through the use of carved gemstones in my jewellery designs.
The colours and inspirational forms, which I saw in India along with the narratives, form the backbone of my current jewellery collection. The new collection comprises of five transformable fine jewellery pieces, each designed around a hand carved gemstone over 80 Carats plus, which I have collected over the past 10 years even before building my own jewellery brand. City Palace in Jaipur was the first palace I visited in India, which is also the main source of inspiration behind this collection. The opulent patterns and unique colour combinations are what caught my eye and were also represented throughout my artwork since school. I work on the designs in stages, initially studying my source of inspiration then drawing it from the impression it has left in my memory. I gradually add colours and forms to bring this memory to its physical form. This leads to the final design, which is carefully analysed to make sure it would be comfortable to wear, and also perfectly captures the most important aspects of the original source of inspiration.
