Maison Megh's Experimental Designs Are Reimagining Indian Silver Craftsmanship

Earth is Square, the Edge is Death.

The single lyric that echoes through the campaign movie from homegrown design brand Maison Megh is replete with meaning. Founded by Parsons Grad Meghna Ratra, between Delhi and Jaipur, the brand debuted with the ‘Earth is Square’ collection of jewellery, accompanied by the campaign movie with the same name. As the launch, they hosted an intimate event called 90° to Dawn on August 2 in New Delhi at the founder’s own home, where the movie was screened, to a select audience. With the intention of breaking creative moulds, Maison Megh has been named a design brand rather than a jewellery brand, giving them the leeway to design pieces that explore the multitudes of their inspiration — whether that is a material, shape, or concept. As depicted in the Earth is Square cinema, they choose to look beyond the edge of their metaphoric limit and find meaning and innovation in the space that exists beyond it; beyond the edge is the death of conformity, where one may find absolute freedom.  

Recently, the brand launched an objet d’art for the festive season: a silver diya for Diwali, reinterpreted in the Maison Megh visual language. The rounded-square diya featuring cabochon amethyst, green onyx with rubellite garnet and peridot accents crafted in 92.5 sterling silver, and finished with 22k micron plating, is a great example of the attention to detail that goes into everything from the label - from the design decisions to the final presentation.

For Meghna, the journey to establishing Maison Megh began with a background in Strategic Design and Management at Parsons in New York, followed by stints in both brand strategy and finance. But her instinct always leaned more toward art and storytelling than corporate systems. “For me, silver jewelry has always been personally and culturally meaningful. In India, it’s often the first piece of jewelry gifted to us. But I never saw myself in the typical silver designs — paisleys, elephants, the traditional motifs. I felt like Indian jewelry was stuck repeating the past,” she says. “While I deeply respect history and traditions, I also feel that as a culture we need to keep innovating.”

That conviction brought her to Jaipur, a city she calls “a hub of knowledge and craft.” For Meghna, it’s not the city’s royal past that defines it but the way its artisans have honed extraordinary skill and precision.

Maison Megh’s debut collection, 'The Earth is Square', reflects this approach. Inspired by her personal leap from the stability of finance into the uncertainties of creative entrepreneurship, the collection and its accompanying film embody the tension between structure, breaking out of it, and finding freedom. The world of the film Meghna Ratra created along with Nishka Basu, Pavvit Chhabra, and Bhavya Ahuja is an 8x8 cube: rigid, patterned, and restricted. Performers move within it with stiff, angular body language, unable to connect with one another. The protagonist, however, diverges. Restless and curious, she eventually falls, or gets pushed off (that judgment is for the viewer to make), but it is an act that becomes literal and symbolic liberation. “That fall is both literal and metaphorical. It becomes her liberation. From that point on, her movements change completely - they become fluid, sensual, playful, and free,” Meghna Ratra explains.

The soundscape for the film was composed with equal intent by the same team. Collaborating with an acappella choir, the team designed an “intensity chart” to translate heaviness, lightness, and release — the key moments of the storyline into raw vocal layers; sometimes chanting, and at other times panting. The result is haunting and deeply human, lending the campaign movie a narrative weight that extends beyond the featured ornaments.

The jewellery itself is anchored by the motif of a hollow square throughout the collection and the campaign film. The square with a hole is a window through which parts of the wearer’s body are framed and perceived through. Some of the pieces are stark metal and gemless, while others are set with semi-precious stones from Jaipur. “It suggests a piece of the soul breaking free through that square,” Meghna noted. The rings, earrings, and pendants are designed not just as adornments but as expressions of departure, curiosity, and renewal.

Meghna Ratra insists on ensuring her label is a design house with the room to grow into designing objects, bags, clothing, and more. “I see Maison Megh as an experimental silver fashion house. Jewelry is just the starting point,” she shared. As the brand looks to its second collection, teasers of which have started to make their way onto its social media feed, Meghna emphasizes that collaboration will be at the heart of Maison Megh. She said, “Creative collaborations with South Asian artists are central to our identity. That was true for our first campaign, and it will be true going forward.”

Maison Megh, then, is not just telling stories through objects, but reframing the larger narrative of Indian craftsmanship — shifting it from filigrees of nostalgia and repetition to designs of innovation and global dialogue. It is a design house coming into being at the intersection of art, materiality, and meaning, one that begins with jewellery but could expand into a world of its own.

You can follow Maison Megh here.

If you enjoyed reading this, here's more from Homegrown:

Architectural Harmony: How George Nakashima Merged Modernism and Spirituality In India

Making Cotton Delectable: Sarasa Textiles Is Reinterpreting Fabric Rooted In South India

Gully Labs’ New 'Shaahi' Collection Fluidly Reimagines The Mojari & Kolhapuri Sandal