New Delhi, May 16 -- Hyderabad-based jewellery designer Kavya Potluri, 31, remembers a childhood spent tagging along with her mother as she went jewellery shopping. "She was a passionate jewellery collector and she'd regularly pick up these beautiful pieces. Even as a child I mostly remember thinking to myself that 'the piece is good but it could have been better'."

Potluri, an alumni of Raffles Design Institute, Singapore, and the Gemological Institute of America, started her eponymous label in November 2020. The intent right from the start, she says, was to make jewellery her way without conforming to trends or traditional templates. "I kept an open mind about what I wanted to do, but I have evolved along the way. My thought process is...