The line-up of speakers on the first day of Design Inspirations was impressive to say the least, and it spanned a gamut of  leading lights representing different facets.

Ishu Datwani, Founder of Anmol provided a glimpse into the building of a store brand, and described his journey in the jewellery world peppered with  anecdotes and some scintillating with some audio visuals. Searching for a   differentiator since the early days, he realised through experience that it was design.   “There is a deep connection between Design and Success; they go hand in hand” said Ishu. But, he cautioned, “Design alone is not enough – there is marketing, branding, administration, financial management, all of which are also important.”

Leading designer Pallavi Dudeja Foley’s presentation “Story of a Nugget” made a case for “Timeless Trendy ” jewellery which is the kind  she makes. “As a designer I want to make a piece that is the best, that is never melted,” Pallavi said. Citing the example of the Little Black Dress (LBD) introduced by Coco Chanel way back then, she said that similarly timeless directions  could be translated into  trendy  jewellery. She went on   give several examples of her own work  detailing out the concepts and highlighting the design features.

“The best way to forecast a fashion trend is to create it,” Pallavi concluded.

Mithun Sancheti, Co-Founder and CEO of Caratlane.com spoke on “Disruption”, espousing the need to innovate and use new technologies in the jewellery business. “You can have a good design,” said Mithun, “but what good is it if it remains in your home or shop? There is a need for “discovery” and an effective eco-system for discovery.”

He went on to share his experience in brick and mortar retailing and how the frustration of the slow growth made him look for new options and how he came to launch Caratlane.com. “We need to disrupt ourselves, otherwise everyone else will rip into us,” he said alluding to the threat from other products and industries. 

Well known designer Gautam Banerjee took the participants through a breezy walk through his designs and design inspirations.  “One can get inspired by anything and inspiration can come  from anywhere,” pronounced Gautam.  “The challenge is how to translate it into jewellery; and commercially viable jewellery at that. For, ultimately, you need to make it for someone who will buy it.”

Students were treated to jewellery designs adapted from everyday objects like a glass, a bowl, the pattern of a leather chair with buttons, light bulbs and so  on.

Revathi Kant, Associate Vice President Design, Innovation & Development at Titan Industries Ltd, enumerated 12 broad trends thrown up by her department’s analysis and going into each in some detail.

She   outlined a case study of how she and her team, given the brief to create a jewellery  collection  for the  new woman developed the consumer profile based on consumer insights, a storyboard for design, a colour palette and finally came up with the jewellery. This finally became the IVA collection.

Renowned jewellery designer Farah Khan Ali presented a detailed insight into what constitutes a designer jewellery brand, and the entire gamut of aspects related to it -  from the creation of its identity, to its characteristics, its language, how to build it, brand loyalty and so on.  

 “To have an identity you need to know what  your niche is, which economic strata of society you want to design for,” Farah said, following  by explaining   the characteristics of various brands.  She illustrated her words with visuals of jewellery of brands like Van Cleef & Arpels, Cartier, Viren Bhagat  and her own. “A designer brand will always have its own unique language,” Farah stressed.

 Valishali Banerjee, Country Manager, India  of Platinum Guild International, spoke on “Insight Driven Marketing”. She defined an “Insight” as “A fundamental truth about human behaviour”. 

 Giving the example of PGI’s build-up to introducing   Evara wedding jewellery, she said that their research had thrown up some key observations. Foremost amongst them was that the parenting discourse had changed; and the wedding landscape had undergone a transformation too. Through a scientific methodology and developing a collection based  on consumer insights, Platinum was  able to enter the bridal market in India she said.

Rudrajit Bose, Managing Partner of Atelier Anonyme put forth a researched presentation dense with data titled Evolving Trend Ecosystem – A Bird’s Eye View of the Curve”. Essentially Rudrajit made a case for the diamond and jewellery industry to sit up and take notice of the changes taking place all around them.

 He said that the gems and jewellery industry faced the threat of “value migration” away from it to other industries like electronics, travel etc.  He urged the industry to expend larger budgets on research and product development. He concluded by quoting Mahatma Gandhi to say: “The Future does depend on what we do right now.”

Paola De Luca, founder of The Futurist Ltd, is both a pioneer and veteran of trend forecasting in the jewellery industry.  She said that Trend forecasting was a tool, a methodology which enabled companies to devise strategies.

“You need to collect the visual data and then analyse this data,” said Paola. “This needs expertise and experience.”

She  outlined the various trend directions specifically for North America and Europe, going into details for each region and showing how they could be translated into jewellery collections.

Pic Cap:

Paola De Luca speaking on Day 1 of Design Inspirations