Back in 2019, to mark a decade of his model Raw Mango, designer Sanjay Garg launched a set of 10 objects that had been billed as collectibles. They included gadgets like the physique armour of a Theyyam dancer made of acrylic, a terracotta bull impressed by an historical Iranian artefact, and digestive powders saved in lovely wooden and brass bins. It felt each puzzling and an influence transfer as a result of on the floor they appeared unrelated to the lovely saris he’s identified for, and but there was a clamour from his viewers base to own it.
“Creative people are not uni-dimensional,” Garg tells me, on the cellphone from Chiang Mai in Thailand, the place he’s searching by way of a flea market. “I wanted to share with people the things I love — antiquities, culture, food — which in a way are a part of my brand. And I wanted them to be seen as such.” Since then, the quantity of craft and design-centric manufacturers in India which have launched verticals devoted to collectibles has exploded.
Sanjay Garg
| Photo Credit:
Amlanjyoti Bora
Theyyam physique armour
These collectibles are sometimes gadgets which are extensions of the model’s major product traces, however created with extra labour and in single piece or restricted numbers. Examples embrace embroidered panels that reproduce the works of famend artists similar to Neelima Sheikh, Ranbir Kaleka and Nikhil Chopra by Milaaya Art Gallery, the collectibles vertical of couture embroidery agency Milaaya Embroideries.
Ranbir Kaleka’s Baroque Blue
| Photo Credit:
Ryan Martis
Lamps and ornamental objects constituted of hand blown glass that mirror the structure of South India’s temples, by the artistic minds behind Delhi’s Klove Studio. Decorative bins and hair pins by the House of Sunita Shekhawat (the jewelry firm specialises in meenakari enamelling). And Jaipur Rugs’ collectible carpets label, Aspura, which sells real antiques, and, as the model’s inventive director Greg Foster places it, “antiques of the future designed by prestigious names from contemporary culture”. The tone was set by their launch at India Art Fair 2025, which featured restricted version carpets conceived by artist Rashid Rana.
Jaipur Rugs’ The Court of Carpets marketing campaign
| Photo Credit:
Neville Sukhia
“Adding objects that explain who you are, is a lovely way to expand your brand and your community. In a way, you’re deepening the linkage between your creations and your consumers.”Deepshikha KhannaDesigner
Shift in which means and method
All of this, some argue, flies in the face of the conventional definition of a collectible, which conventionally is described as an object that by advantage of its age, rarity and backstory is taken into account helpful by a collector. For instance: an vintage Chola bronze statue, the draft manuscript of Ponniyin Selvan with writer Kalki’s notes, and in the design area, chairs designed by Swiss architect Pierre Jeanneret, in the Fifties, when he was constructing Chandigarh.
“It’s human nature to collect material things: shells, coins, textile. An object becomes a collectible [in the monetary sense] if someone is willing to set up a transaction around it and pay a value far higher than its core value,” says Ashvin Rajagopalan, founder of Chennai artwork and collectibles gallery Ashvita’s. “For that to happen, it takes time; the object has to become rare and have a backstory that moves the market. To take something that’s new and to say that it’s collectible, giftable, limited edition, rare, is to make it hold value. I think these are more marketing labels than a true collectible.”
Ashvin Rajagopalan
Ranvir Shah, a famous collector of artwork and antiquities, counters this. “Brand extensions are what a creator thinks are commercially valuable items, which over a period of time may also appreciate,” he says. Shah runs Chennai-based Prakriti Foundation that usually hosts occasions round artwork, tradition and literature. “People like my father, for instance, collected Lladró products,” he provides, referring to the Spanish maker of fantastic porcelain house equipment and ornamental objects. Today a legacy model, its classic productions are thought-about extremely helpful by collectors. “Every time he travelled overseas, he would buy something he could afford, thinking it would appreciate in value. And they have. A Ganesha idol he bought for ₹5 lakh has gone up in value to over ₹8 lakh.”
Another instance comes from Srila Chatterjee, co-founder of Mumbai-based design gallery 47-A and curator of Baro Market, a digital market that usually hosts offline gross sales of artwork and design-centric collectibles. “All the incredible work that [multi-disciplinary artist] Riten Mozumdar did for Fabindia [1966-2000] is a great example. People like my mother paid next to nothing for his textiles back then. Today, retrospectives of his work are hosted at top galleries, which makes his work collectibles. In my opinion, if someone is willing to pay a premium for an object that they want to keep in their homes, then it’s a collectible,” she says.
Ceramic collectible from Ashvita’s
“Creative people are not uni-dimensional. I wanted to share with people the things I love — antiquities, culture, food — which in a way are a part of my brand. And I wanted them to be seen as such.”Sanjay GargDesigner
Where craft takes centrestage
In the Indian context, many of the commercially out there objects which are labelled as collectibles are touted to be rooted in a number of conventional craft. If the connection is genuine, that itself makes the object a collectible, opines Manju Sara Rajan, co-founder of Bengaluru design gallery KAASH.
Manju Sara Rajan
| Photo Credit:
Rohit Bijoy
The area works with internationally-trained designers and hereditary Indian craftspeople to create distinctive design-centric objects. Such as lights created by Italian designer Andrea Anastasio, collaborating with shadow puppetry artists from Andhra Pradesh, and furnishings impressed by Chettinad’s kottan basketry weave, designed by Bengaluru-based architect David Joe Thomas. “By virtue of being handmade, such objects are few in number. They are usually the product of a special collaboration and you’re not going to be able to buy them elsewhere. So, you are buying into a craft legacy that may not exist in the future.”
There’s additionally an argument to be made, say trade insiders similar to Deepshikha Khanna, ex-creative director of Good Earth, that extensions in the kind of limited-edition collectibles are a intelligent method to broaden a model’s attain by interesting to a key cause of why a person collects — to change into a component of a group that appreciates the identical stuff you do. “At the start, your customer is going to buy into your brand at a very superficial level by buying whatever your base product is,” says Khanna, who counts amongst her acquisitions Garg’s Theyyam physique armour. “But how do you get them to go beyond that? Adding objects that explain who you are, is a lovely way to expand your brand and your community. In a way, you’re deepening the linkage between your creations and your consumers.”
Deepshikha Khanna
To just do that, lighting designers Gautam Sheth and Prateek Jain created a sub-brand, collektklove, that provides design fans smaller merchandise which are offshoots of what they create for his or her major model Klove Studio. Examples of Klove Studio’s work may be present in the daring, experimental chandeliers put in at venues similar to Ran Baas The Palace resort in Patiala. “We realised there’s an aspirational market of young professionals who appreciate good design,” says Jain, explaining why they determined to introduce smaller objects in a value vary (from round ₹25,000) extra inexpensive than their luxurious chandeliers. “These are objects, like table and floor lamps, which can be easily placed in homes, We’re also working on collaborations with designers whose aesthetic we like to create premium collectible products,” he provides.
Prateek Jain (left) and Gautam Seth
collektklove’s Deepa candle stand
Depending on elements similar to what number of items of a collectible design object are being produced, the designers, the craft concerned, and the storytelling behind it, costs can vary from a couple of thousand rupees to six-figure tags. “Since we started in 2022, we’ve seen consistent growth of about 20% year-on-year,” reveals Tarini Jindal Handa, founder of Mumbai-based design gallery Aequo whose collaborative work with rural artisans in Karnataka and the Parisian designer Valériane Lazard, received the gallery a up to date design prize at PAD Paris 2023. “Earlier, the U.S. was our dominant market. Now 40% of our buyers are Indian. Clearly, they’re drawn by the uniqueness and connection to their culture and heritage.”
Tarini Jindal Handa
Aequo x Chamar furnishings
| Photo Credit:
Manan Sheth
“Earlier, the U.S. was our dominant market. Now 40% of our buyers are Indian. Clearly, they’re drawn by the uniqueness and connection to their culture and heritage.”Tarini Jindal HandaFounder, Aequo
Newer collectors lead the means
The rise in labels providing collectible design merchandise, say specialists, is in direct response to the client’s urge for food for consumption. Which in flip is being fed by increased ranges of affluence, elevated consciousness of world tendencies, and, to some extent, the recognition Indian craft practices have acquired from world design labels. Remember Dior x The Chanakya School of Craft — the hand embroidered mise-en-scène for the model’s 2022 spring-summer present in Paris, as an illustration?
“When I first arrived in India 10 years ago, very few people were buying collectible design, and there was a handful of designers creating them. The scene has completely changed now,” says Foster. “Today you can see the appetite in collectors who are already buying from fairs like Design Miami, PAD London and Paris, and from design fairs such as Design Mumbai. Given that the contemporary art market is so developed, definitely the next commercial frontier is design.”
Greg Foster
A typical chorus is that those that discover artwork too formidable to put money into contemplate design extra approachable. “Newer collectors especially no longer see art as equal to a painting. It’s also in the sofa that you might sit on or the jewellery you wear,” Chatterjee insists. Another issue that’s performed a “significant role” in boosting consumption of design merchandise: COVID-19. “I’ve seen studies that reveal how people, since they were spending more time at home, became interested in what their homes looked like,” reveals Chatterjee, which she says resulted in higher investments in artwork, inside design, and an enormous cause “why I feel a lot more things are being collected now than ever before”.
Aequo x Valériane Lazard
According to a current report by the U.S.-based analysis agency Grand View Research, India’s design-centric collectibles market is predicted to hit revenues of round $22 billion by 2030. A valuation that not solely contains artwork, design and antiquities but additionally objects with lived histories — similar to furnishings, stamps, foreign money, collectible figurines, vinyl information, motion figures, books, classic tech and printed imagery. Which may properly imply extra collectible design being produced.
As I put together to hold up, Garg tells me he’s again to designing a brand new collection of objet d’artwork. When he mentions a toothpick, I’m wondering if he’s solely teasing.
The author is predicated in Mumbai and studies on journey and tradition.
