OPULENS

FROM TEXTILES TO CHOCOLATES, BUSINESS TODAY EXPLORES SEVERAL ASPECTS OF LUXURY IN THIS PHOTO ESSAY

- BANDEEP SINGH

Primordial Grace

CREATIVITY IS A thriving industry in Mumbai, like a tide incessantly rising towards commercial value and sales figures.

Amidst that, design house Studio REN stands as a quiet testament to a different philosophy. For the visionary duo, Rahul and Roshni Jhaveri, who helm it, design is not an imposition but a response to a seeking of revelation.

This ethos finds its purest expression in their celebrated Swayambhu range, a collection of jewellery where the final form is not entirely dictated by the designer's skill, but is created in collaboration with the elemental 'hand' of nature.

Swayambhu is a Sanskrit word meaning 'self-manifested' or 'that which is born of itself.' The Swayambhu bracelet, priced at ₹18 lakh, is one among a series of wooden bracelets created with collected pieces of raw, gnarled, and antiquated wood that is melded with hand-sculpted, matte grey gold to complete the bracelet shape. The gold is not polished but burnished to an understated sheen, so that the wood remains the hero, explains Roshni. Ten freeform natural diamonds—artfully cut and polished around their original shape—are asymmetrically set in the folds of wood as an offering to its abstract grandeur. The single edition Swayambhu bracelet—each of which takes 8 to 10 weeks to finish—is beyond adornment, a meditation worn on the wrist.

The Black Pearl of Poultry

DEVOTED CONNOISSEURS OF non-vegetarian Indian cuisine, who scoff at the very mention of chicken, fall into a reverential awe at the mention of the Kadaknath chicken. Originally a wild fowl from the Dhar and Jhabua regions in Madhya Pradesh, the