From wild cats to house cats, birds and bees to marine life, animals and nature play an outsize role in the iconography of high jewellery’s most famous designs. KEYA by Adbhut, a contemporary jewellery label from Jaipur founded by jewellery designer Keya Agarwal Badhalia, explores this aspect through her debut collections, Under the Ocean and Into the Forest.
KEYA by Adbhut’s Nature-Inspired High Jewellery
Rooted in Jaipur, KEYA draws deeply from the visual and cultural language of its home. But rather than recreating familiar expressions, the brand looks at how these traditions can be interpreted through a contemporary artistic lens.
Techniques such as jadau, partash, meenakari, gulabi meena and utarai, developed and passed down through generations of Rajasthani artisans, are brought into conversation with sculptural forms, unusual proportions and a contemporary design vocabulary.
Taking us through the intricacies of her debut collections, Keya says her inspiration comes from a lifetime of collecting little things—experiences, objects, stories and details. “I was fascinated by miniature art from a very young age. I remember being intrigued by the idea of writing on a grain of rice or creating something incredibly detailed on the smallest possible surface. I would collect miniature objects from my travels around the world, and that fascination has stayed with me.”
Nature’s colours and the movement of the ocean, the textures of the forest, the anatomy of animals and the incredible forms that exist naturally around us find their way into the collections. “Growing up in Jaipur, then moving to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Los Angeles and Milan, surrounded by its history, miniature paintings, jewellery and craftsmanship, has also deeply shaped the way I see beauty and detail. In many ways, KEYA is a brainchild of these lived experiences,” she shares.
She uses traditional techniques to bring the creatures and their natural textures to life. “Meenakari is used almost like a miniature painting. Partash and jadau are more primitive, sculptural techniques that allow us to build and carve the jewellery almost as one would sculpt nature itself. Stones are embedded into gold and the gold is hand-carved and worked around them to recreate organic forms as realistically as possible,” she explains.
Keya works with a range of gemstones, from high-end Paraiba tourmalines to rubies, emeralds and multi-colour sapphires. The combination of gemstones and miniature painting helps make each piece look as realistic and sculptural as possible.
“I’ve used cabochons, freeforms, carved stones and rough-cut gems. These shapes bring in an organic, unstructured quality, just like the varying surfaces of these animals. Whether it’s crocodile scales, where we have used cat’s eye cabochons, or a jellyfish’s body with cut paraiba stones, they are selected intentionally,” says Keya.
Her background in finance taught her to look at value differently—not just in terms of price, but in terms of rarity, meaning, longevity and story. “That perspective comes through in the way I approach design now. I’m not just making jewellery; I’m creating wearable sculptures that hold value—emotionally, culturally and artistically,” she adds.
Price on request. Available online.
—manuvipin@newindianexpress.com
@ManuVipin
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