FROM RAIPUR TO ROME, designer Sonam Sakhuja’s journey has been nothing short of extraordinary. The 23-year-old graduate from Accademia Di Costume E di Moda in Rome recently joined hands with global fashion house Blumarine to create their signature B-earrings. An international fashion house that was founded in 1977, after seeing her works during one of their annual examinations, selected Sonam’s design and requested for more designs from her. After frantic calls, meetings and design prototypes, Sonam’s design was finally walking down the ramp at Blumarine’s Spring Summer ’19 show in Milan, teamed with a Blumarine’s bicycle shorts, a classic Blumarine scattered floral sports bra and their sneakers.
A cultural shift
“I knew I wanted to become a fashion designer at a very young age. So as soon as I finished college, I joined the School of Fashion Technology in Pune with product design as my major,” explains the Raipur-girl who also has a portfolio of creative collaborations with Italian jewellery labels like the Chevalier Project and Falcinelli. Currently based out of Rome, Sonam’s inspiration comes from being around her father who is a sculptor and her mother who is an artist. Her time in Rome turned out to be about cultural epiphanies and about realising how much potential she had to make it as a jewellery designer.
Tracing transitions
“Blumarine came across my work one particular semester, and wanted me to produce more designs for them for a collection. Eventually, I got a call from them and they wanted me to send them the B-earring design for a Spring Summer ’19 show. It got approved, and after I re-read the mail due to sheer disbelief, it finally happened,” says an audibly excited Sonam, talking to us over a call from Rome. The piece that she worked on originally starts out as a ring that transforms into a golden ribbon forming the logo of Blumarine, which lends the collection its name Blossom of Pleasure. “I’ve worked with wax and metal for this piece, but have also used a gemstone in the centre. I also the concept of making ‘sass out of trash’ very exciting. I have made everything from avant-garde baroques using just trash and LED lights to a kalamkari ring made out of a lid from a restaurant!”
Dial up
Sonam is currently working on timepieces for Italian watchmakers Verdastro and Litas for an academy project where she is learning everything from scratch — down to the basics of creating a watch’s mechanism. She recalls how it is a precise process, where even if you miss 0.5 mm with your hands, the watch is destroyed. “Although my major is not watch making, I would definitely love to incorporate them into jewellery soon,” says Sonam.
The designer’s favourites back home are Suhani Parekh of Misho and Roman Narsinghani. “There’s also James Merry who is a UK-based hand embroidery artist and a multidisciplinary artist named Malakai — both whose experiments I love! I also hope to work with Gucci some day, because they’re so daring with their designs,” concludes Sonam, who is presently working on a personal project called Rare Aware , a jewellery collection inspired by the emotions of endangered species towards human beings.
Price on request.