Retailonomics of period film jewellery

Certain jewellery brands are building a reputation through their collaborations with major film projects, Indian and overseas. We learn, from two jewellers of long standing, about the demands and rewards of partnering with the silver screen on epic period dramas. History, meet the modern marketplace.

- Anurima Das

The recent epic film Panipat is based on major historical events in 18thcentury north India. It was a time when empires and nobles clashed and conspired on a grand stage. Naturally, in making the film, noted director Ashutosh Gowariker needed sets and costumes of a suitable scale.

To conjure up the elaborate jewellery of the era, the Panipat team turned to P N Gadgil & Sons, Pune, Maharashtra. PNG is a venerable brand with over a 200 year history of its own. Its experts designed more than 1,200 pieces for the lead actors to wear. Each and every design had to be fine-tuned to make it screen-ready. The process took seven or eight months.

Panipat, released on 6 December, is far from alone in calling upon today’s experts to recreate the glories of the past to thrill cinemagoers. For another recent release set during the same historical period, a UK–India film on The Warrior Queen of Jhansi, director Swati Bhise called upon maestros Vinay Gupta and Anshu Gupta of Shri Paramani Jewels, Delhi, to create suitable, exclusive, antique-style jewellery pieces. PNG, too, contributed designs to this production.

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BACK STORIES

PNG’s head designer Narendra Jadhav tells us how he prepared for the challenge. “First, we were briefed about the characters for whom we had to design the jewellery. Then we were told about the scenes in which the jewellery would feature. Our task was to create versatile looks, true to the historic period, for every twist and turn of the storyline.”