Richa Baisa is a homegrown jewellery brand creating bold, contemporary South Asian pieces inspired by Indian heritage, everyday objects, traditional craft, and the founder’s maximalist upbringing. From grillz and serpent-shaped waist chains to chokers and unconventional body jewellery, founder Richa Chandak works with Jaipur-based karigars to reinterpret familiar forms through a playful, sensual and modern lens.
Sensual, bold, and unapologetic, Richa Baisa is a homegrown brand that makes contemporary South Asian jewellery for the modern woman. The name ‘Baisa’ is a respectful honorific title used to address or refer to girls/women in Rajasthan. For the brand, it has come to represent a similar archetype of a woman who is admired in all her regality. With bespoke nail rings, grillz, waist chains, armlets, chokers, toe rings and pieces designed to sit in unexpected places on the body, the brand’s approach to beauty stems from a grace and heritage that is native to South Asian culture but without the traditional codes of ‘modesty’ that are often associated with women and their style.
"The jewellery is made in Jaipur," notes the website, by karigars who come from Kolkata, Rajasthan and other parts of the country, carrying knowledge passed down through hands and years of working with metal. The team is led by Khus bhaiya, alongside Utpal bhaiya, Vijay bhaiya and Vishnu, whose experience lies in traditional jewellery made for temples, weddings and heirlooms. Now they make grillz and serpent-shaped waist chains — daring statement pieces — that welcome all reactions, be it “That’s weird” or “That’s everything”.
The brand's founder, Richa Chandak, never went to design school; all she had was “an imagination that wouldn’t sit still, and hands that always wanted to make something out of it,” as she puts it. She was always good with design but didn’t know how to express it, so she started with jewellery. She also grew up surrounded by it, in a family that collected jewellery but never the very traditional or minimal kind. Even her 75-year-old grandmother has a very unconventional sense of style, so jewellery and fashion were always something she saw through a more contemporary, fashion-forward lens. “Indian heritage itself is so rich and maximal, so I don’t think maximalism was something I consciously chose for the brand,” she says. “It was already a part of how I saw things.”
Richa’s designs are influenced by everything she sees, hears, reads and feels — and often from ordinary things that can easily go unnoticed. Coming from the small town of Mirik near Darjeeling has been a huge source of inspiration for her as well. The Doko Choker, for instance, comes from the bamboo basket used in the hills to carry everything from tea leaves and water to babies. The Kirtimukha, or Guardian Angel, is another motif seen outside temples, that eventually became an earring.
“I think I become a little obsessed with certain things. I sit with that feeling, look at it again and again, and eventually it finds its way into something I make.”Richa Chandak
As a brand, the visual identity of Richa Baisa was also developed instinctively. There was never a moodboard or fixed visual direction; Richa does most of the shoots with friends and has taken almost 80% of the pictures herself, even modelling for the jewellery when she started. Straying from the high-contrast glamour of editorials, the brand goes for more of an anti-aesthetic, cool-toned, digital-snapshot sensibility — something that’s already growing popular among urban lifestyle spheres given the design-fatigue that comes with advertising everything on social media. The understated appeal also speaks to Richa’s gentle reserve as a person and how she sees the world: "I was a very shy and introverted child, even though I always had a lot I wanted to say,” she shares. “I used to write those feelings down in my journals. I think, in a way, Richa Baisa has become an extension of that; it's a way of expressing all the things I may not have always said out loud.”
As a self-taught jewellery designer, every material still feels like a new experience to Richa, and she is constantly learning through the process. Her Naagmayi collection, made in collaboration with Shesha, founded by Reshmi Dey, introduced her to working with glass alongside metal. “I had never really imagined using something so fragile alongside metal,” she notes. “The metal almost becomes the support, while the glass takes on its own life around it.” Richa has so far built an already impressive collection of pieces that entice you with their creative and playful forms but the designer is just getting started. “I’ve always wanted to push metal beyond the usual idea of jewellery like onto shoes, bags, clothes and other objects,” she says. “I’m already exploring some of these ideas, and I’m excited to see where they take me.”
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