Jewellery & Watches12 Nov 20244 MIN

Meet the Gujarati precursors of quiet luxury

In the 1900s, the Mangaldas matriarchs embodied the term before it became a fashion movement

Portrait of the Mangaldas Family of Ahmedabad

A portrait of the Mangaldas family of Ahmedabad

When you’re invited to a legacy jewellery exhibit of Gujarat’s foremost matriarchs—you expect to be blinded by emeralds and diamonds the size of boulders against a Julia Hackman Chafé-styled narration announcing caratage and price. Instead, at this exhibit in Ahmedabad, boulder-sized gemstones were dismissed for finely crafted tortoiseshell hair combs, Italian micro-mosaics, a Mexican thunderbird necklace, and a tribal Nagali necklace. In fact, even asparagus gets its minute in the spotlight here, with its very own handcrafted silver serving rack complete with a sauce boat, biters, and tongs.

Which leads to the obvious next question: what in the world was an Indian family in Gujarat in the early 1900s doing with an asparagus holder? “It baffled me too,” says Puja Shah, curator of the collection. “It’s an effort to shop for fresh asparagus today in Ahmedabad, leave alone a century ago. But that’s how I found out that while lunch was Gujarati fare, dinner [at the Mangaldas household] was always continental, until the Swadeshi movement.” The 19th-century Edwardian set in question was imported during colonial rule in India by Ambalal Sarabhai, owner of the Calico Textile Mills, and gifted to his daughter Leena Sarabhai Mangaldas. It was acquired from Mappin & Webb, the heritage British brand whose clients include every British monarch since Queen Victoria, Marie Antoinette, the last Czar of Russia, Winston Churchill, and Grace Kelly.

Ahmedabad-based Shah is the designer and co-founder of jewellery brands Aurus and Moi. She’s also behind the Indian Family Jewels project, a bid to trace the etymology of jewellery worn across India. And this is how she ended up spending the last couple of years rummaging through the almirahs, trunks, vaults, and cellars of the Mangaldas havelis in Ahmedabad. Shah was invited to play curator and archivist by long-time collaborator, Abhay Mangaldas, the suave, gentlemanly heir who is the founder and director of The House Of MG, a heritage boutique hotel in Ahmedabad. The scope of the project included the jewellery and objets d’art owned by his mother, Anjali Hutheesing Mangaldas, and his grandmother, the abovementioned Leena Sarabhai Mangaldas.

Abhay remembers how his grandmother, fondly called, Leenaben, engaged in an elaborate shringaar—imagine a GRWM, but a slower, aesthete version. Evidence of the ritual can be found in the art nouveau vanity kit, a decorative vinaigrette and a vermillion holder set, ittardanis and the finely crafted silver kohl pots. He explains, “She spent a great deal of time dressing up every morning...Two of her personal staff would lay out her outfit on the bed, along with her jewellery, for her approval. Her [make-up] essentials included foundation, red lipstick, a vermillion teeka, and kohl, all placed on a silver tray held by a maid. Another maid would apply oil to her hair before braiding it into a bun. Often, she took phone calls during the ritual.”

The phone calls were more often than not, related to the various institutions and cultural initiatives that Leena was running. A working woman, she like most of the Sarabhai family, was committed to education and culture (her brother Vikram, of course, is known as the father of India’s space programme, and was instrumental in building not just ISRO but also IIM-A). During her lifetime, she wrote 60 children’s books in Gujarati and founded the Shreyas Foundation School in 1947, where she got her former teacher, Maria Montessori, to help craft their curriculum.

“Leenaben was more of a custodian of the jewellery she had inherited. She was a true connoisseur of craftsmanship,” adds Shah. Anjali, on the other hand, was the innovator. Having studied textile design at The Royal College of Art in London, she had a keen interest in designing jewellery and studying craftsmanship. “I think she looked at jewellery and asked, ‘How can I make it a part of my personality?’ She understood more than anyone that jewellery is not meant for lockers, but is meant to be worn. I felt a connection with her, because this is the core of my philosophy as a jewellery designer,” says Shah. Anjali collected ‘tukdis’ or pieces of old jewellery and remade them, and completed the missing sets she inherited from Leena by working with master craftspeople—armbands were converted into a necklace and broken clasps became pendants.

The two matriarchs, while different in their approach, updated a tradition of patronage to the crafts that they had inherited from their respective and shared lineage that stretches back to the Junagadh empire. And through their collections, what we’re led into is the rabbit hole of old luxury, a certain ‘khaandaani’ je ne sais quoi, where both women looked beyond intrinsic value—they were almost material-agnostic, be it gold, silver, brass, rudraksha beads, or natural diamonds—and focused more on nurturing heritage crafts, artisanal skills, and a traditional yet wearable aesthetic.

Leena Sarabhai Mangaldas and Anjali Hutheesing Mangaldas’s collection of personal jewellery, items of worship, and tableware is on exhibit as part of the permanent collection at The House Of MG in Ahmedabad.