Adding a pop of colour

Jasmin Kaur grew up learning how to create a balance sheet but her true passion was ‘colours’. So she took a big leap and turned her experimental hobby into a business by putting her heart and soul into it. Although she got her BCom degree and was a CA final year student, accounts and finance never really caught her fancy. “It did not allow me to explore my creative side,” she says. 

So she decided to embark on her creative journey and set up Technicolour Jewellery. The core idea of her brand is adding bright pops of colour to everyday life. “I wanted to make quirky jewellery accessible to people without having to shell out too much, and at the same time make sustainable jewellery,” she says. Hence the products are made from recycled cardboard and leftover fabrics. “I’ve always hated the idea of throwing away beautiful scraps of fabric so I came up with a way to use it. I would also like to add that the charm of handmade products is completely different from machine-made ones. There’s this special beauty in every piece, how each one is slightly different from the other in its small details,” she adds. 

Kaur has always had a fascination for Indian fabrics and textiles. “There’s something so warm and happy about them,” she says, recalling an incident when her mother had a patch of Ikkat fabric which was left over from a salwar suit and Kaur did not want to discard it. “So I used the fabric with some cardboard and old studs and made a pair of earrings and that is how it all began,” she says adding that she would then send the jewellery to her friends. What really boosted her to start Technicolour Jewellery was when they posted pictures of her jewellery online and people started inquiring where could they buy them. “So I started selling from them my personal Instagram page,” Kaur adds. 

Simplicity and wearability of the designs is the USP of her brand. “I think wearability is extremely important when it comes to jewellery and my pieces can be easily worn daily to work or at special events,” she says. Most of the jewellery are lightweight and easy on the pocket. “Every piece I make is an echo of what I stand for — sustainable, fun, ethical products that bring a smile to your face,” she adds. 

For the designs, she takes inspiration from anything and everything around her. “It could be a shirt my friend is wearing, or something a friend drew sometime back, or even basic geometric shapes,” she says adding that she combines fabric pieces with recycled cardboard and German silver. There are times when she finds a metal piece and draws around it to turn it into something it’s not. She may have an idea in her head but it takes weeks to test it out and turn it into a piece of jewellery because not everything is practical and wearable.

Kaur is managing her startup by herself. “I am managing the accounts, manufacturing, designing, social media etc,” she says, adding that now she has a friend who has started to do the graphics since that’s the one thing she simply can’t figure out.

Technicolour has a number of earrings and neckpieces in various sizes. They recently even made rakhis. She points out that in the future she plans to expand to brooches and rings and eventually maybe into lifestyle upcycled products.

Talking about the hurdles, she says, “The biggest challenge that I have right now is plagiarism,” she adds that rampant plagiarism is a reality of Instagram. She says that it was frustrating at first with so many random accounts popping up and stealing her designs. “But most of the times, their quality is inferior. With stiff competition around, running a business is tough but things can be worked out if you are ready to work hard and smart,” says the young entrepreneur. 

The earrings are priced between Rs 500 and Rs 850. While the neckpieces start from Rs 650, the genuine Afghani pendants cost somewhere around Rs 2,000.

The products can be purchased via her Instagram or Facebook page, or even via email. She mentions that they also have pop-up shops in Gurgaon during the Diwali season.