Sabyasachi Mukherjee made news earlier this year when he partnered with American luxury brand Bergdorf Goodman, as a way of garnering a steady international buyer base since the designer reportedly plans on opening up a flagship store in the USA later this year. Mukherjee’s upcoming jewellery lineup in collaboration with Bergdorf Goodman New York pays an homage to two of the most culturally and historically relevant streets of Kolkata, namely Chowringhee and the Sudder Street. The collaboration which will continue till September this year features three collections, Chowringhee, The Sudder and Bengal Royale.
The Sudder is a superbly eclectic luxury jewellery line-up featuring vibrant and exquisite amalgamation of colourful gemstones like rubies, emeralds, sapphires, peridots and has been entirely handcrafted in Kolkata. In a way, the collection tries to capture the smorgasbord of cultures and experiences that Sudder Street stands for. The designer took to his label’s official Instagram handle to reveal that as a young fashion student, he would often spend hours at Sudder Street’s popular Blue Sky Cafe to sketch tourists.
“If there is one street that sums up the City of Joy, it is perhaps the Sudder Street - full of dilapidated buildings, bohemian hotels, global cafes, touts and sex workers and a cornucopia of vintage thrift stores, antique shops and tea stalls jostling for space. As a young fashion student, Sabyasachi used to sit at the Blue Sky Cafe in Sudder Street to sketch foreign tourists and hippies travelling to India in search of Nirvana. The energy was colourful and cultural, there were no boundaries and it was inclusive diversity at its throbbing best. This handcrafted jewellery collection reflects all of this and more. Uncut diamonds, emeralds, rubies, spinels, tourmalines, jade, turquoise, crystal, coral, moonstone, cat’s eye, sapphires, agates, peridots, fluorites, amethyst, garnets all mash up with global motifs, etchings, enamelling and embossing to create modern cultural heirlooms,” Sabyasachi wrote on Instagram.