Every brand has an origin story, and most of them are suspiciously cinematic. Mine begins with a word count.

But let me back up.

A random Google search (because that's free)

In 2015, I'd been designing jewellery professionally for four years — I started my career at Tanishq after my undergrad in Design from NIFT, and I owe that place most of my understanding of the product and the business. I loved the design process. But I kept feeling like I was working with one eye closed: I didn't have a deep enough pulse of the end customer, of why people actually buy what they buy.

So I went down a research rabbit hole looking for a master's that married design and business. In a country where the arts are treated as something you pursue as a "hobby," I found nothing suitable. On a whim, I took the search international — and I say "on a whim" because at that point it was literally a random Google search, because Googling is free.

What's not free is supporting yourself as a student in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I'd found an MA in Fashion Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the London College of Fashion, and precisely one way to afford it: a fully-funded, merit-based grant in loving remembrance of Tara Nirula, an extraordinary young woman who had studied at LCF and lived at the International Students House in the heart of London.

One scholarship. Per year. One.

For a small-town girl with a modest middle-class upbringing, even attempting it felt delusional. But it was my only option, so I dove head first into portfolios, SOPs, scholarly articles, and interview after interview after interview with various decision-making bodies.

Seven long months later, my mailbox chimed. And how. The 16th of July 2015 — imagine a fairy tale and multiply it by a hundred. I didn't know it then, but that email was the germination of The Slow Studio.

The desperate shortcut that changed everything

Here's the part I love telling, because it's the least glamorous founding story in fashion.

The final deliverable of my course was an 18,000-word research thesis. That it gave me cold feet as a creative would be an understatement. But buried in the course directives was a piece of fine print: a "practice-based" element — a business plan or brand concept — would let you shorten the thesis to 14,000 words.

Obviously, I jumped at the hack. And I did what I do best: created an entire jewellery label concept. Not just a brand identity and design direction on paper — actual handcrafted samples, executed long-distance by karigars in Jaipur, the lovely folks I knew from my Tanishq days.

The Slow Studio was born as a desperate shortcut to a passing grade.

It made me one of only two distinction-awarded students in my class. It also, though I didn't know it yet, changed the course of my whole life.

The debut "collection" was five pieces. The debut photoshoot was pure Indian jugaad: at 5am on a cold September morning in 2016, two of my best friends from ISH walked with me to Regent's Park. My gorgeous friend T, from Pakistan, had woken at 4am to do her own hair and makeup, and wore her best whites to play muse on a chilly London morning — the goosebumps are visible in the photos. My dearest friend from Mongolia shot the whole thing. Budget: zero. Heart: all of it. Both of them were drowning in their own theses at the time, which is exactly when you find out who your people are.

Delhi, a jewellery box, and Binary

Back in India with saplings of The Slow Studio in my mind, I had a brand concept, five samples, and no practical idea how to launch anything. So I wrote to Pooja — the quintessential jewellery lady, mothership of Nimai, and one of the first industry experts I'd interviewed for my thesis. Our first e-meeting was a FaceTime call where my prepared questions lasted about four minutes before dissolving into very enthusiastic free-flowing jewellery talk.

Next thing I know, I'm on a train to Delhi with my little jewellery box of five pieces. Over coffee and conversations, Pooja and Prachi gave me solid feedback, offered The Slow Studio a proper Nimai launch — and appointed me their Head of Design. Nimai is where I learned the brass tacks of running a designer jewellery label: craftsmanship, inventory, pricing, marketing, all of it.

With that fresh perspective, I went back to the drawing board and extended the original idea — the marriage of Indian craftsmanship with contemporary silhouettes. Binary was born: 25 pieces in 22 carat gold-plated reclaimed brass, a modern, minimal take on the 5,000-year-old Indian filigree technique, each piece named after a London street or borough I'd haunted. The best of both my worlds, quite literally.

The launch photoshoot happened in a dingy basement studio in Delhi with a muslin-cloth budget for styling, a dear friend and co-worker stepping in as model, and a photographer I'd met the week before. Despite the constraints — maybe because of them — we tried some slightly unhinged things in that studio and got exquisite results. Those images launched us at Nimai, and within weeks, at most major stores in the country.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Where we are now

Today The Slow Studio runs on a lean, mean core team of two — me and my merchandiser — plus the best karigars and creative freelancers in the business. If you've ever emailed the brand or sent us a DM, you've spoken to me. If you've visited an exhibit, you've met me.

We make one collection a year. In an industry that drops something new every fortnight, this is either commercial madness or the entire point, depending on whom you ask. (You can guess where I stand.) One collection a year means every piece gets the research, the failed samples, the karigar hours, and the obsessive QC it deserves — and means that what you buy from us will never be mass, never be repeated, never be landfill.

I should be honest about the rest of it too: I'm a solo founder and imposter-syndromer-in-chief. Nobody tells you that running a fashion brand is 80% struggling with Excel formulas. Don't believe the fluff they show you about fashion.

But when a piece comes back from the karigars and it's right — the trials, the errors, the angst of failure, the ecstasy of a breakthrough, all pressed into one small object — there is nothing more satisfying on this earth. That's the luxury we're actually selling: the luxury of owning a story. A flawed, imperfect, beautiful one.

Just like its wearer.

P.S. — When not working, reading about, or stressing over brand-building, I'm mostly sleeping or playing with the street dogs outside my building. Priorities.