Transforming Treasures

Repurposing or remodelling old, inherited jewellery has many paybacks, prime among them is being able to retain and wear the piece that has sentimental value attached to it. The other reason is to preserve such pieces that are created with timeless crafts most of which are today on the verge of extinction. Shanoo Bijlani spoke to three top designers from India to find out their take on the subject.

How often have you wistfully looked at a piece of jewellery – a hand-me-down from your great-grandmother or aunt – and wondered: ‘if only I could wear it!’ Sentiments prevent you from selling it, and perhaps its design may not match up to your taste and you defer wearing the dated piece. So, the precious piece lies neglected in the jewellery box for good, along with your buried pangs of guilt for having wasted an opportunity to put it to good use.

Today, though, there are many top designers in the country, who channel their creativity into transforming old jewellery to suit your style as well as retain the essence or the main motif of the ancient ornament – thus offering you a brand new piece to suit your style and personality.

More often than not, it’s pure happenstance that leads jewellery artists to double up as remodelling specialists.

Abhishek Basak, founder of Absynthe Design, New Delhi, is a graduate from NIFT Hyderabad. In 2011, after a successful career in fashion, packaging and graphic design, he opted for making jewellery using antique watch parts, and established his brand formally in 2014. Basak has created close to 4,000 unique pieces of jewellery in the last nine years.

So did he intentionally begin to upscale jewellery for consumers? “Jewellery making started as a hobby, as I needed to de-stress from the tension of my corporate job. I have always loved the process of creation, and one day, I just picked up one of my mother’s old mechanical watches to explore. I loved the small, detailed parts in the watch and used them to make something beautiful and intricate.”