Jewel Tones: Alice Cicolini’s contemporary take on meenakari jewellery

Her resultant colour-burst of one-of-a-kind baubles — handcrafted with 23.5-carat gold, bright-coloured gems and hand-painted with jewelled tones of vitreous enamel — are currently on display at Mumbai store, Bungalow 8. Designed in London, enamelled in Jaipur with “metalwork produced by UK’s finest goldsmiths”, Cicolini’s jewellery is an interesting amalgamation of Western design and eastern craft.
And to think she was initially resistant to the idea of dabbling in enamel! “In the UK, enamel culture has a very studio craft aesthetic,” she explains. But there is nothing “crafty” about her collaboration with Meenakar, one of the last remaining master craftsmen practising the Persian-origin tradition of meenakari. Over six years of their creative exchange, Cicolini and Meenakar have found mutual understanding and shared commitment. While the master craftsmen stays true to his family’s centuries-old enamelling tradition, he has learnt to explore new colours and shapes in keeping with Cicolini’s contemporary design direction.

“His creative practice is also a spiritual process for him — almost like a form of worship. He’s not a factory worker, but someone with a highly specialised skill set. So, I’ve learnt to accept that things will get done when they’ll get done. In return, he has adjusted to my working style as well,” says Cicolini.

Her distinct style continues to be inspired by “applied art going back centuries — old ceramics, elements of miniature paintings, vintage textiles, prints, glasswork, and the likes”. She says, “I look for images and objects that have been made before and see how I can reinterpret them in the modern context.” So, while her ‘Chattri hoop earrings’ and ‘Temple Shinkara pendant’ are inspired by India’s architectural heritage, her ‘Samarkand fire opal ring’ draws inspiration from patterns and designs of the Silk Route.

But perhaps the most dramatic items in her repertoire are the stark black hand-carved ebony pieces used in her ‘Temple’ series. “There is a very old and established jewellery language around ebony,” she explains. “These were actually models created to display what a piece would look like. I decided to incorporate these models into my jewellery instead of discarding them,” she says.

Today, Cicolini sources these pieces of endangered ebony from the offcuts of specialised furniture designers and collaborates with skilled craftsmen for her carved cloudy rose quartz, lemon quartz and amethyst pieces, lending a different dimension to her meenakari narrative.

Exploring the nature of craftsmanship and celebrating skill remain high on her agenda. “It’s sad that people will pay lots of money for a MF Husain painting, but when it comes to design and jewellery, they only want to pay for the value of the stone. They don’t appreciate the value of the skill that has gone into creating it,” she adds. For now, she plans to continue building her craft story, which, in days to come, will take her from Bungalow 8 in Mumbai to Collete in Paris, and onwards for a possible collaboration with miniature painters in Kabul.