Sometime last year, maybe August, or was it March, I sat across fashion designer Masaba Gupta at her Delhi store, for a journalistic interview. Masaba was her usual charming self. We chatted fashion and marketing, and neon. But, what really seeped into my photographic memory was a pair of colourful chairs folded open inside her chunky chandbaalis. She caught me staring hopelessly at her ear flaps and said “It’s a Mrinalini Chandra design”. As a slave to my intrigue, I decided to investigate further. My findings are as follows: The Mumbai-based Chandra found her share of aesthetic in an abstract art museum. And, like a wild and carefree creator, her collections have featured a ‘pentagon arm cuff’, a ‘flower and moth arm vine’, ‘we heart monkey earrings’, a ‘parrot necklace’, and even a ‘railway creeper kaleera’. Not to mention a complete jewellery line inspired by the chair, aptly titled ‘Have a Seat’, the same one Masaba was seated on. When Chandra recently created a line of foundation cases—petite white ones with golden birds and cherry blossoms embossed over it—I had to know why she chose to drift to softer, simpler, classier design. Launched in January, the limited edition cases were created for beauty brand Za that was launched in India recently by House of Shiseido. “It was refreshing to create this one-of-a-kind collection exclusively for India,” she says.
The cases are a careful blend of concepts inspired by India and Japan, and are crafted at Chandra’s Jaipur unit. You can spot parrots from the Mughal gardens, which have also chirped in Chandra’s previous collections, perched on Japanese cherry blossoms. While the golden embossing may be different on each case—four unique designs—these hand-crafted cases come in white representing Za’s True White Two Way foundation, launched in December last year. Priced at `6,000 and above, they will be available at Atosa in Mumbai.
Chandra is working on an exciting line for her label. “It will be an eclectic range of whimsical, slightly modern, slightly ancient, just like my earlier collections but entirely different in design,” she says without revealing much. What she lets out though is how her working experience at Mont Blanc and Tanishq shaped her design career. “I got a chance to work on Meisterstück for women, one of the world’s first writing instruments, designed by Mont Blanc. That gave my aesthetic a strong foundation,” she says. From her tessellated honeycomb-bib-style neckpiece for a competition for World Gold Council in 2008 to her latest Shakuntala collection, Chandra has never shied away from experimenting with jewellery, even if it meant a few raised eyebrows. “I was hinted to tone it down, but the huge pieces with futuristic designs struck a chord with customers,” she adds. While Chandra designs every single piece herself, she has a team of traditional craftsmen—meenakars in Jaipur and nakkashkars in Lucknow—to give a traditional touch to her modern designs. She retails at Anantam and Evoluzione in Delhi and Atosa, Aza, and Creo in Mumbai and online at Pernia’s Popup Shop.
Bollywood divas have expressed their admiration for her creations, clutching them around for photo-ops. But Chandra would love to see Michelle Obama wearing her jewellery one day. Is the First Lady, who happens to be in town, listening to us?