Designation: A jewellery designer

I am : 27 years old

My job: Based on the floral form of the Kushan (first century AD) era, I design disc-like earrings, set with rubies and diamonds, and then coat them with rhodium to get a platinum effect. I prefer using diamonds and gemstones in gold jewellery, rather than focus on the heavy and stark gold look.

From the lab to the designing board: I graduated in biochemistry from St Xavier's, Ahmedabad, and then went on to New York University to study genetic engineering. Soon enough, I realised that I was not cut out for lab research. I was always interested in jewellery design and one day, on an impulse, I strolled into the Fashion Institute of Technology, (FIT), New York, which was offering courses for it.

How education helped me: It honed my designing skills. At FIT, we had both jewellery drawing and designing classes. We had gemology, geology and math classes (which I sailed through because I had been a science student); we also studied global cultural sensibilities and art history. Most important, such training helped me to adopt a scientific approach, for example, when I made wax models of my designs, I took into mind the orthographic joints, the same way an architect would view every line on his blueprint!

My inspiration: It was very inspiring for me as a student at FIT to walk down the Diamond District in New York, the global hub of diamond design and trade. It is almost entirely run by Jews and Indians! My stint at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York introduced me to aspects of Indian art other than jewellery.

I knew I had arrived when: I gave lectures at a show displaying Mughal jewellery (part of the collection of the Sheikh of Kuwait) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. It was a great interactive experience.

Pooja Shah spoke to Swati Sucharita

So You Want To Be A Designer?

• Take a formal course in jewellery design. Besides FIT, explore other institutions like NIFT, NID (National Institute of Design) and NIJD (National Institute of Jewellery Design), both at Ahmedabad, and Sardar Patel Centre Of Jewellery Design and Manufacture, Surat. Besides, there are jewellery product development centres in Mumbai, Delhi and Jaipur.

• Focus on any single aspect of design. For eg, I find enamelling fascinating, so I researched jewellery traditions in Jaipur, Benares and Hyderabad I use it most liberally in my designs.

• Before plunging into your own business, work for a couple of years with a reputed jewellery brand, like Tanishq, Asmi, Tribhuvandas Zaveri, etc.

• Know your market and get your pricing right - that way you will strengthen brand loyalty.

• Have a small workshop-cum-office which creates the ambience for interacting with your works men and clients.