The Process

A piece is drawn three times before it is made.

Once with a ruler, once with a hand, and finally — in gold. This is how a single ornament travels from a sheet of paper to a bride's neck.

Stage 01

The line drawing.

It begins as geometry. Every petal placed by measure, every bead given its coordinate, every drop of pearl spaced to the millimetre. This first drawing is precise the way an architect's blueprint is precise — it has to be, because seven karigars will read it and each must read it the same way.

Here the proportions are settled. The width of the collar at the shoulders. The depth of the central pendant. The way the floral vine breaks at the seven-o'clock position to make room for the medallion. Once the line is drawn, the piece has a skeleton.

Technical line drawing of a Lakshmi temple necklace
Stage 02

The shaded sketch.

Now the same drawing is given a body. A pencil is taken to it, and the lines that were only outlines begin to gather weight. The petals turn. The Lakshmi figure recedes into the medallion the way she will recede into the gold itself. The pearls catch a light that hasn't yet been struck on them.

This is the drawing the client sees. It is no longer a blueprint; it is a portrait of a piece that does not yet exist. They look at it. They say a petal here, a drop there. The sketch absorbs the conversation, and the piece — still on paper — comes a little closer to itself.

Pencil-shaded refined sketch of the same Lakshmi necklace
Stage 03

The finished ornament.

Then the karigar takes over. Wax model, casting, hand-finishing, stone-setting — work measured in days, not minutes. Rubies find the petals they were drawn to. Emeralds find the leaves. The Lakshmi at the centre stops being a figure on paper and becomes a figure of gold, looking out.

When the polishing cloth is set down for the last time, the drawing has become weight. Forty-some grams of gold, give or take. A piece that exists. Then it leaves the workshop, and goes on to live whatever life jewellery is made to live.

The finished Lakshmi gold necklace with rubies and emeralds

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Most of our work begins with a conversation, and a sheet of paper.

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