Blue lotus and parrots… Kochi designers on how they created the Kerala-themed look for actor Keerthy Suresh’s wedding

When actor Keerthy Suresh was planning her wedding ceremony and brainstorming the ‘appears’ and trousseau together with her stylists, Kochi-based bridal put on designer Tiya Neil Karikkassery’s identify popped up. And because the workforce was ideating one of many outfits, jewelry got here up for dialogue. And if Tiya was designing the garment, who else however her mom, Asha Sebastian Mattathil, to make the gold jewelry? 

To the uninitiated, Asha might be one among Kerala’s first unbiased jewelry designers. The mother-daughter duo’s work for a search for the actor’s Goa wedding ceremony has are available in for lots of reward.

This isn’t the primary time both of them is designing for a celeb. Asha has designed for Mammootty’s daughter’s marriage as additionally for Rajinikanth’s eldest daughter and for one of many capabilities associated to racing automobile driver Narain Karthikeyan’s wedding ceremony capabilities.  

A cheerful Asha wearing a cream and inexperienced ombre kurta and trousers, flaunts her matching inexperienced heels as she poses for the images, joking that the footwear ought to present. Her enthusiasm belies the 30-odd years she has been designing jewelry.  

Asha Sebastian Mattathil together with her daughter, and designer, Tiya Neil Karikkassery at her jewelry studio MOD
| Picture Credit score:
THULASI KAKKAT

We’re at MOD Signature Jewelry, her designer jewelry retailer in Panampilly Nagar. The primary ground homes Tiya’s bridal design studio, T&M Signature. The glass doorways are excessive safety, the type that wants playing cards to be swiped for the door to open. Asha leads me into an interior chamber, a bridal lounge, which has all method of neckpieces, dominated by a wingback chair. One nook is an elevated glass walled nook, a trial room of types for brides. 

Kerala as inspiration

A store assistant brings a jewelry show model on which sits the necklace Keerthy wore with the Kerala-inspired ensemble that Tiya designed. She veered away from typical Kerala motifs equivalent to Kathakali. As a substitute picked parts equivalent to a parrot, fish, plantains, coconut palms, a tharavadu (homestead), kalaripayattu, the snake boat, caparisoned elephants, and chenda (a percussion instrument). 

The Kerala motif necklace
| Picture Credit score:
THULASI KAKKAT

“We saved to the white and gold, however interpreted it in another way,” Tiya says. There’s a sprinkling of motifs on the ensemble pavada-davani, generally generally known as the half sari or two-piece sari. The skirt is layered, with scalloped gold edges. The davani is the color of gold, which accentuated the Kerala theme. Asha credit Tiya for the strategies for the jewelry.

“She wished the neelathamara (blue lotus) and the parrots, as an illustration.” Although Tiya holds a level in jewelry design, she prefers designing bridal clothes. The designs have been finalised in July for the December wedding ceremony. Tiya additionally designed the kurta Anthony wore along with his mundu, to match what Keerthy was carrying. Different movie star brides Tiya has designed for embody actors Bhama and Amala Paul amongst others.  

The motifs on the necklace, the assertion piece of the look, are the blue lotus, parrots and lotus leaves set with blue and inexperienced stones. Punctuating the motifs are King George gold sovereigns generally known as pavan; tassels product of clusters of gold beads grasp from the decrease a part of the neckpiece. “The tassels would transfer with the individual carrying it. I assumed it might be a pleasant element so as to add,” says Asha. 

Keerthy’s temporary was that she wished one thing ‘easy’ and conventional. “However then I instructed her, ‘there may be nothing that I can convey into a conventional piece. You don’t want me for that.’ We then mentioned how we might go about designing the jewelry. Keerthy was clear about what she wished and was a pleasure to work with,” Asha provides.

The elakkathali designed for Keerthy Suresh
| Picture Credit score:
THULASI KAKKAT

When Keerthy talked about the standard elakkathali, Asha gave it a recent twist with out marring the fantastic thing about the unique. Elakkathali is a typical piece of Kerala jewelry, a choker which has leaves of gold hanging from it, which do a shimmering ‘dance’ when the neck strikes. Asha’s take is muted, not flashy with detailing on the leaves. A pair of jhumkas that may be worn with each neckpieces, a bangle and ring accomplished the look. Asha additionally designed Keerthy’s emerald wedding ceremony ring (for the white wedding ceremony) and earstuds, and cocktail danglers for the after get together. 

Perceptive designing

Asha prides her notion or somewhat her means to know what somebody desires. “When the shopper begins describing what they’re searching for, I get it. And to have the ability to talk it to my craftsmen. And that has labored for me all these years that I’ve been designing jewelry.” 

Keerthy Suresh throughout her wedding ceremony festivities 
| Picture Credit score:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

She first designed jewelry within the Eighties, for herself. These days there have been no designer jewelry or boutiques as at the moment. Asha not pleased with what she noticed within the retailers and as a substitute designed her personal vangi (armband for higher arm). “That was such a success that my cousins and others within the household too acquired the identical factor made.”

She married right into a household that has a stake within the gold enterprise in Pala, which additional facilitated her curiosity in designing jewelry. “When my son, Akshay, was nonetheless a child, I made some jewelry for him, which individuals preferred and wished related items for his or her youngsters.” One factor led to a different and her record of purchasers grew from family and friends. 

The turning level in her profession, she confesses, was designing jewelry for Mammootty’s daughter’s wedding ceremony. “It was all word-of-mouth publicity. Folks heard of me and got here to me,” says Asha, who opened a retailer in Kochi in 2015. Pala was too far, Kochi was extra centrally positioned.

MOD stands for Mattathil Ouseph Devassy, her husband Sebastian’s paternal grandfather. Her workshop continues to be in Pala. Akshay handles the enterprise finish of MOD, and infrequently dabbles in design too.  

Asha can also be licensed by the Gemmological Society of America.

Her sensibility, Asha says, may be something. She refuses to be boxed in, and her aesthetic labelled as minimalist or maximalist. “I’m a designer first. Jewelry designs are the one factor I can consider…I could make something you need!”