Leave Your Mark

When it comes to jewellery design, there’s no one quite like HANUT SINGH. On the eve of their 10th collaboration in Mumbai, we get Singh and MAITHILI AHLUWALIA to talk about being old souls in a modern world.

- Priyanka Khanna

In the digital age, getting an insight into a person’s life has never been easier. Take, for example, jewellery designer Hanut Singh’s Instagram page (@hanut101, if you aren’t following). Vignettes from travels, details of his eclectic home, his dogs Kishmish and Jetset, lush images of flora and fauna, vintage designs, incredible women wearing his creations, and Singh’s many influences collide in his visual narrative. “It’s really what I like, and what informs my aesthetic,” says the Delhi-based jeweller (who, in a fitting legacy, descends from the Kapurthalas, the royal clan known for commissioning some of the most decadent jewels and artefacts known to us). “It’s not thought-out at all.”

Dressed in his trademark black crew T-shirt and casual trousers, with talismans around his wrist and neck, Singh is in conversation with Maithili Ahluwalia, the woman behind Mumbai’s Bungalow 8 and a long-time collaborator. “We go way back. My grandparents knew his grandparents, we went to college together,” says Ahluwalia. For the last decade, they’ve come together to host trunk shows of Singh’s jewellery. This year, they ‘popped up’ at Mumbai’s legendary Phillips Antiques, where the store’s priceless antiques provided the perfect canvas for Singh’s latest pieces.