Current volatility in the gold markets has led to a new wave of ‘Make In India’ that is taking place at home - notably in the jewelry segment.
Before starting, it is important to note that India’s gem and jewelry industry is a hefty contributor to the country’s economy, comprising up to seven percent of GDP.
Industry body FICCI estimates that this market, valued at approximately $40.4 billion in 2013, has the potential to grow to $85 billion by 2018.
However, facts and figures on the Indian jewelry segment tend to account largely for gems and gold, which have always been staples of the economy – purchases are made for religious and cultural occasions – and consumption relies on the price of gold. India is the world’s largest consumer of gold.
Over the last couple of years, gold purchases have been falling, with a rising currency and higher gold import tariffs to blame. So it is only natural that the younger generation choose to spend their rupee on something a little more inexpensive.
“In 2012, for the first time ever, sales of artificial jewelry were higher than sales of gold,” says Pooja Roy Yadav, who calls herself a “non-gold loving person” and has been a strong advocate for young creativity within the Indian fashion-jewelry sector.
Yadav, is also Founder and Creative Director of Nimai, a New Delhi based store that curates and stocks only Indian-made artificial jewelry.
“For a long time Indian export houses were designing for high street to designer brands, the craftsmanship and techniques all come from here,” she says, “but it is only now that fashion aesthetics here have changed and it is only natural that demand follows.”
Nimai itself celebrates ‘Make In India’ with a commitment to celebrate Indian design and manufacture, and take it global, says Yadav.
“Invariably, when I’m entertaining international clients, they’re shocked that these artificial, well-made, and highly fashionable pieces are being created by Indians, in India.”
The country has long been a manufacturing hub for the non-gold loving jewelry world, second only to China. Indians themselves however, didn’t take to buying artificial pieces in the same way as they did gold and gems, until now – culturally it was considered a social faux pas, and a wealth-related stigma for women to wear something that wasn’t real.
Yet Yadav has seen domestic demand skyrocket and despite having opened her store only last year, is already preparing to shift to a bigger space in Delhi, as well as take her multi-brand jewelry on a global roadshow, to meet international demand.
An encouraging response to the “non-gold” means Yadav is now pushing the artisans to become designers and homegrown manufacturers in their own right, and plans to showcase the results as such.
Citing an Indian-made brand called Rara Avis, which works entirely with leather, Yadav says the resulting neckpieces could certainly be mistaken for the product of a high-end European designer.
“It’s a new level of opportunity, and potential, for ‘Made in India’ brands to become part of the global luxury lexicon,” she says.