Haute fantasies. This is how one can describe jewellery at Nimai, the multi-designer store. This is wearable miniature architecture, because small coins hold hairpins together to make a fancy clip from the recently launched Tales of the Brok Pa line by designer label Madsam Tinzin; hand-beaten medallion-like ear cuffs, from same line, are attached to beads makes body harness; earrings and cuffs from brand Lai are handcrafted by inlaying silver wire and sheet on oxidised zinc and copper alloys. “Each of these pieces that you see at the store will be on sale online,” says Pooja Roy-Yadav, the founder of Nimai, India’s firstmulti-concept jewellery store.
Even at 33, Roy-Yadav has the nervous energy of an enterprising teenager. To meet her at the store nestled in Shahpur Jat’s labyrinth-like lanes is to step into her equally high-spirited world. She takes us through the store as we discuss the online store and how model shots over product shots would help online shoppers feel and choose the jewellery better. “We are more of traditionalists with our heart still in the brick-and-mortar space. Online doesn’t do justice to our trade because we think jewellery should be touched and felt before being bought,” the former brand strategist with a Delhi-based public relations firm says. Since last year, she was bombarded with requests to go online from her customers. “In fact, Nimai’s current offline customer base is our best bet,” she says. Contrary to her fears, a week-old online store is already garnering buzz. Thanks to its current roster that includes brands such as Eina Ahluwalia, Suhani Pittie, Outhouse, Valliyan, Zariin, Absynthe Design, Chicory Chai, Misho Designs, Metallurgy, Baby Baniya besides others. But before her brainchild became this hot marketplace for emerging and established jewellery brands, Roy-Yadav had a tough time carving a niche for Nimai.
Smitten by the evolved concept-jewellery scene in London, where she did a jewellery-making workshop at Central Saint Martins, Roy-Yadav came back to India only to be saddened by the scenario here. After a brief stint at creating her own line (Bangdar Sarali with a friend), Roy-Yadav decided to open a store. The reaction of the market was anything but encouraging. People told her that the market isn’t ready. They said people spend only on fine jewellery. “The most common comment was that Nimai’s jewellery is too experimental,” she says. To her surprise and the chagrin of her critics, the most outlandish jewellery piece, a body harness, was the first one to fly off the shelves. Nimai, which started as a small experiment from a tiny rented space in a heritage building, not far from where the store stands now, was a hit. In sharp contrast to seven designers in 2013, Nimai now houses 55 brands. Roy-Yadav remembers writing to every jeweller she knew before taking the plunge. Hyderabad-based Suhani Pittie was one of the first designers to come onboard. She chased Kolkata-based designer Eina Ahluwalia for a year, who came down to see the space herself before agreeing to retail at Nimai. “Today we have 55 designers, 55 design sensibilities, 55 price points. There’s something for everyone,” she says. With designers deciding the price points and offering an average margin of 30 per cent to Nimai, the pieces are priced from `500 to a few lakh. “I tell the designers to be as crazy as they can with the designs and leave the selling to us.”
Even after two and half intense years of selling other’s creations, Roy-Yadav hasn’t forgotten her days on the other side, as a creator herself. She has designed a collection that has been handcrafted by the kaarigars associated with Ahmedabad-based Craftsroot. The organisation works with thousands of artisans from across Gujarat who are an expert at traditional crafts such as beadwork and brass. “The USP is that jewellery pieces will be named after the artisan who has made it. They will no longer be a faceless name. It will be ‘Sameer dada for Nimai’ and so forth,” she says. As Roy-Yadav dons the creative hat, we’ll keep a close eye on brand Nimai.