Zoya Takes Inspiration From India With Pride: Ajoy Chawla

“Kashmir is poetry of India, if I were to say that. And for us, an Indian homegrown brand in the luxury space, celebrating something India loves—Kashmir—was a natural thing,” he says. The earlier edition of Whispers from the Valley has been one of Zoya’s most enduring collections, and it seemed only fitting to revisit it. “Our design team was very inspired. We saw the opportunity to bring alive the metaphor of nature and its renewal. Nature renews itself through seasons, and the Zoya woman too is perennially evolving. She’s self-expressive, she’s renewing herself, she’s changing. For us, that whole theme of renewal, reflected in Kashmir’s transition of seasons, came together beautifully with the precious coloured stones we celebrate at Zoya.”

From emeralds and rubies to yellow and pink sapphires, exotic stones mirror the valley’s hues. But translating Kashmir’s poetry into jewellery was not without its challenges. “If you want to show transition, you need to show fluidity. And fluidity means mimicking nature’s beauty in asymmetry and imperfect forms. Take the chinar leaf—it’s never perfectly symmetrical. Its jagged, irregular beauty is what we wanted to capture. That’s where the challenge lay—whether in the chinar leaf, in layering, or in showing fluidity,” he explains.

Layering became a striking motif. “Think of the transition between winter and spring—the frosted snow meeting the green apple. The way they merge, the layering that comes out of it. Bringing that alive in jewellery design took immense effort from our design and product development teams,” he says. Another challenge was sourcing stones that matched Kashmir’s colours in gradation. “To show hues from yellow to burnt orange to deep red in the chinar leaf, you need stones that reflect that ombré. Finding that range in precious stones, in the right numbers and cuts, is not easy. But our team worked very hard to achieve that.”

The process was long and detailed. “All of Zoya’s collections take at least nine months, if not a year. This one too took close to a year, from inception to bringing it alive. Even now, not all of it is in stores. The first set of pieces has rolled out, and over the next few weeks, the entire collection will be available.”

At the heart of Zoya lies the idea of the Zoya woman. “She’s eclectic in taste, multifaceted. She may wear traditional jewellery, but Zoya doesn’t celebrate tradition as much as it celebrates heritage. She is inspired by India but is also someone exposed to international brands and design. Our appeal is international, but we take inspiration from India with pride. She’s self-expressive, evolving, and unapologetically herself. And most importantly, she indulges in herself. She doesn’t need approval from society to celebrate who she is,” says Chawla.

That spirit of self-expression finds resonance in every piece. “This collection is entirely about meaningful, deep design stories. There are ranges inspired by the chinar leaf, with all its shapes, forms, and colours. There’s another inspired by the green apple with a frosted look, captured in layers and emeralds full of movement. And the third theme draws from tulips and red apples, evoking summer. We wanted to give choices, since it’s a festive season—three colours, three moods, each with its own story. But all unmistakably Kashmir.”

For Chawla, Kashmir perfectly complements Zoya’s philosophy. “Kashmir represents the beauty of nature in its unique form. It has always inspired poets. Even if people haven’t been there, they aspire to. That aspiration quotient is very high. For us, it was a natural inspiration to bring alive.”

Over the years, Zoya has found inspiration in many corners of India—from stepwells and Banaras to the journey of rivers. But Kashmir, with its poetry of seasons, feels special. “It’s an intrinsic part of who we are, an Indian brand drawing from India’s treasures, yet appealing to international taste.”

Among the collection’s highlights is a striking rock crystal-inspired yard chain. “It’s cut in a particular way, held together with a gold encasing in a jali form. It’s for those who don’t want colour but prefer to play with the natural tones of diamond and rock crystal. It has a white look with gold—very unique,” Chawla says. In all, the collection spans 35 designs, priced between ₹4 lakh and ₹75 lakh, though most fall in the ₹15–25 lakh range.

As for the larger vision for Zoya, Chawla is clear. “Zoya should be the benchmark of fine jewellery. It should always stand for the most refined taste and the most beautiful design. It should celebrate exotic jewellery that appeals to an international audience but is unapologetically Indian in origin. In India, yes, we pride ourselves in being the benchmark. Internationally, we are in that peer group but still have some distance to cover. We have some of the best craftsmen, but what we need to build is the orientation towards luxury, the kind of attention to detail that international houses like Van Cleef or Harry Winston have perfected over decades. We are just starting out. There is a lot to learn, and a lot to grow.”

For now, though, Whispers from the Valley captures Zoya’s intent in the most poetic way possible—taking the timeless beauty of Kashmir and translating it into jewels that tell stories of renewal, colour, and individuality.