Evoking Desire

Geetanjali Gondhale’s fascination for nature and tribal arts and crafts compelled her to turn her back on advertising and plunge into jewelry design five years ago.

What gave you the confidence to opt for jewelry design despite no training in the field?

GG: I’m a commerce graduate who worked as a UI designer for a few advertising agencies and corporate houses for over ten years. Though I was in ‘design’, ‘craft’ was my first love. My work on different design solutions trained me to be empathetic, and how to systematically extract, learn and apply the human-centered techniques to solve business/user problems in a creative and innovative way. I felt that I could adopt these ‘Design Thinking’ methods in my jewelry designs too. Visualization and design comes naturally to me, but it took me some time to understand, learn, adapt and merge my love for craft with my skills in design.

Why did you decide on handcrafted silver jewelry? What’s the story behind ‘Moha by Geetanjali’?

GG: I love being in nature. I used to trek a lot and travel to villages in the interior where I would see local tribes and was always amazed by the creativity and detail in their offbeat tribal jewelry. That’s what inspired me! So I did a market survey and competitive analysis and realized that there was a niche I could cater to. I decided to focus on handcrafting silver jewelry by utilizing ethical jewelry making practices. Silver being more affordable became an obvious choice when I decided to craft jewelry.