Stringing together a success story

You know how they say, marriage changes plans? Well it turns out for Nisha Moorthy – saying ‘I Do’ last year helped her discover a whole new love that she would never have known otherwise. The newly wed-jewellery maker laughs, “This whole thing happened by accident.” It so happens that Nisha’s newly launched boutique range of jewellery, ‘Collier’ (string of beads in French) was started because of her shift of residence to her husband’s hometown in Tirupur. “We moved there from Chennai, about six months ago for his job,” she recalls. But with a background in theatre and five-star hospitality, it seemed neither was an option to pursue in her new home. And with no friends in the vicinity, except for her black pug – looking for an activity to pass time happened quite naturally.

“I was shopping online one day when I found this beautiful pearl necklace that I had to have,” Nisha recalls. What surprised her at the time was the exhorbitant rate of the piece, even though the pearls were artificial. But even this purchase didn’t lead this full-time homemaker at the time to her passion for jewellery — it took another wedding. “I was sitting at an in-law’s house, the day before a wedding,” she remembers, “and all the youngsters were chatting about what they wanted to with their lives.” She adds, “I thought why not give jewellery a shot.” With no training whatsoever, “except if you count maybe stringing together gypsy beads in college,” Nisha jokes, she jumped in.

Afternoons were spent getting creative with oxidised copper beads, red coral and fresh water pearls. And in-laws and relatives role-played her target audience before any of her experimental jewellery creations could be uploaded on her Facebook page. “But after 11 orders in all of 20 days, I was surprised to see how many women out there enjoy my designs,” Nisha beams. She adds, “I just make what I would like to wear and much of my inspiration comes from what I’ve seen on my mum’s Kanchivaram silk sarees.”

Ironically, her first order was placed from the UK. From her apartment’s living room in Tirupur, Nisha’s handmade creations seem to have reached an audience a world away. And with the orders pouring in from as far spread as Chennai and Coimbatore to Delhi and Australia, this jewellery artist has even entered one of her necklaces in a $1,000 competition in the US!

So what is she planning next? “Maybe a few lessons with terra cotta jewellery, you know to expand my range,” Nisha responds as she shows this reporter an exquisite marble pebble-mauve shell necklace, strung along an elaborate mesh of golden metal loops. But the real question is – what’s going to happen the next time, she attends a wedding?

(Collier creations are priced between Rs 350 and Rs 2,000. Log on to the Facebook page Collier by Nisha Moorthy for more details.)