NEW DELHI, India — Indian designer Manish Malhotra has introduced jewelry in cooperation with Forevermark, the diamond brand from the De Beers Group.
“Jewelry has always been a part of what I do,” Malhotra said. “This is a great way for me to launch my jewelry design — with Forevermark — which has a lot of integrity.”
Describing his elaborate chandelier-shaped earrings, Malhotra said that the styling worked well with his design philosophy, which is “very Indian, and yet modern. The earrings are all in diamonds and the size makes it very bold,” he said.
The earrings took two months to craft, he said. They were shown recently during a vintage-inspired evening at the Imperial hotel here, along with Malhotra’s bridal dresses with their layered skirts and understated mirror work
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The launch marked further expansion in what has been a fast-growth market for Forevermark.
“The Indian market has grown in high double digits over the last few years,” Sachin Jain, president of Forevermark India, told WWD. Having grown to 45 doors within its first year in India in 2011, the brand now has more than 140 doors. Bangalore is its biggest market, followed by Delhi and Mumbai.
“By the end of the year, Delhi and Mumbai will be the largest markets in India, even though tier-two and tier-three cities [the smaller cities] will continue to be focus areas for us as well,” Jain said.
Malhotra noted that although Indian women have traditionally preferred chunky jewelry, there is a change in the market, which is now open to experimentation, and interpretation.
“I think that is also where Indian fashion is leading right now — earlier, there was a lot of focus on shine and bling, then came the saturated, antique feel and now I’m noticing that there is a focus on independent, individual taste which combines a little bit of everything,” he said. “Now a girl doesn’t shy away from being shiny on one day, and being absolutely cultural and traditional the next day. That whole mix is interesting. Today, people are having fun with fashion.”
Jain added that women were playing additional roles in their daily lives, and with that their jewelry preferences were changing too.
“The wedding market is a big part of it of course, but I see a lot of daily wear coming into play, a lot of expression of love, occasion-based buying, which now includes birthdays and anniversaries, which would earlier have been only on festive occasions, such as Diwali. So the peaks are becoming smaller, but the regularity is increasing,” he said. “So now you won’t have a dead month for shopping, like June used to be a few years back — there is a continuity of shopping.”
With India as one of the four core markets for Forevermark — the other three being the U.S., China and Japan — Jain observed that the markets were “only getting deeper and that we will grow for sure in India.”