Fighting patriarchy, one beautiful bauble at a time: Eina Ahluwalia turns the idea of jewellery as feminine on its head
Ahluwalia’s seemingly simple trinkets hold much pain, shed fear, take struggles on head-first, and celebrate womanhood that would make the fiercest feminists more
‘Top Notch’ is a fortnightly column where journalist and editor Namrata Zakaria introduces us to fashion’s elite and erudite club. *** Pardon the cliché, but most women love jewellery. But here is a piece of jewellery that speaks to you, reads your mind, and tells the world your story. In the world of cinema, we would call that a blockbuster. In the space of jewellery design, it’s best known as Eina Ahluwalia. Eina Ahluwalia, who founded her namesake label almost 20 years back, has made her oeuvre famous by telling women’s stories. Her seemingly simple trinkets hold much pain, shed fear, take struggles on head-first, and celebrate womanhood that would make the fiercest feminists proud. Ahluwalia wants to turn the idea of jewellery as feminine to jewellery as feminist. As Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie would write years later, and Christian Dior designer Maria Grazia Chiuri
A tree overlooks the window of Eina Ahluwalia’s room at her Kolkata house. One day, 15 years ago, she came home early from work and it struck her that it had been four years since she’d seen that tree. “I’d be out of my house at 8 am and back home well after dark. I’d never see sunlight. I never got long breaks to go trekking with my sister. Did I really want this life?” reminisces the award-winning conceptual jewellery designer.
Turned out, she didn’t.
Armed with a from a girls’ college in Kolkata and an MBA in marketing from Mumbai, Eina’s short corporate career came to an abrupt end that day. She was only in her 20s; she decided to focus on things she loved.
It happened to be jewellery. As a hobby, the handicraft-lover had been working with artisans to retail handmade jewellery after a bit of design intervention from her side. Having decided to make a profession of it, she attended various jewellery fairs and workshops around the world to educate herself and, in , she launched her own label, Breathing Space.
After six years doing business by herself, she was joined by her sister Atikaa who would go on to streamline the operational side of the business. Her sister’s sup
About Eina Ahluwalia
Our jewellery is our personal and social activism, created from the soul and inspired by life. Our themes revolve around feminism and spirituality, and our pieces are sometimes subliminal and sometimes loud messages to the wearer and the world. They are meant to give people a strong yet beautiful way to wear a personal reminder or a point of us the pieces are a sublimated outrage, despair, hope, humour and utopian idealism. The process of creation is usually cathartic. Rooted in traditional craft and hand made as a philosophy, we work with master craftsmen to create intricate and detailed fretwork with a soul that cannot be matched by is also our secret crusade to subvert the paradigm of jewellery as a means of ornamentation loaded with patriarchal symbolisers, a way to appear more beautiful to the other; and reclaim and redefine jewellery as a woman’s way of expressing her independent identity, as a symbol of empowerment, purely for her own enjoyment, as a celebration of herself." - Eina Ahluwalia .Eina trained under the pioneering conceptual jewellery artist Ruudt Peters in Holland, and studied at Alchimia Contemporary Jewellery School in Florence.
Art, thought and self-expression with Eina Ahluwalia
How did jewellery happen to you? You are someone with a good head on your shoulders, someone who wouldn’t be attracted by the superficiality of jewellery. Or am I wrong? Is there no contradiction at all?
I always loved jewellery, but never thought I’d be making it. I completed MBA, joined the corporate world, but in four years realized I wanted to do something more meaningful. I quit and decided to make jewellery with the master craftsmen in Bengal.
In January I set up my label, and made contemporary silver jewellery. From for two and a half years, I worked as consultant for a jewellery export company, learnt production process and traveled to jewellery fairs across the world. Soon I decided to refocus my energies to take my own work to the next level.
I was also beginning to question the motive of jewellery — as, fulfilling the need for ornamentation seemed shallow. My search for meaning led me to discover conceptual art jewellery just by chance. It is where the concept/idea is most important, the jewellery is just a way to tell the story. It’s evaluated — like fine art — for ideas, i
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Art, thought and self-expression with Eina Ahluwalia
How did jewellery happen to you? You are someone with a good head on your shoulders, someone who wouldn’t be attracted by the superficiality of jewellery. Or am I wrong? Is there no contradiction at all?
I always loved jewellery, but never thought I’d be making it. I completed MBA, joined the corporate world, but in four years realized I wanted to do something more meaningful. I quit and decided to make jewellery with the master craftsmen in Bengal.
In January I set up my label, and made contemporary silver jewellery. From for two and a half years, I worked as consultant for a jewellery export company, learnt production process and traveled to jewellery fairs across the world. Soon I decided to refocus my energies to take my own work to the next level.
I was also beginning to question the motive of jewellery — as, fulfilling the need for ornamentation seemed shallow. My search for meaning led me to discover conceptual art jewellery just by chance. It is where the concept/idea is most important, the jewellery is just a way to tell the story. It’s evaluated — like fine art — for ideas, i
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