The India-born jeweller who made it to Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of Showgirl’

“Honestly, it was not on my 2025 bingo card,” Nilofar Jaques says to me between peals of laughter as we connect over Zoom one Tuesday morning. The London-based founder and creative director of jewellery label Anayah is an entrepreneur and mother of two, who is just settling into her scheduled meetings for the day after packing her children off to school. Except today, things are a little different.

As the world got caught up in the process of dissecting the good, the bad, and the ugly behind Taylor Swift’s latest musical offering, The Life of a Showgirl, Jaques was celebrating the fact that one of Anayah’s pieces—the Basbas set featuring cubic zirconia stones—landed up on Swift’s neck in visuals shot for the album. “There are certain people who you think will never happen for you. And then I suddenly get this email with a picture of her [Taylor] wearing my piece. I didn’t sleep that night.”

Swift is not the only pop cultural phenomena who has jumped on the Anayah bandwagon in the last few months. Jaques’s creations have been worn by pop girlies everywhere: from Paris Hilton and Doja Cat to Raye, Lisa of Blackpink, and Christina Milian. “Milian was the first person to wear my pieces, about five years ago,” Jaques recalls. “She tagged us in a story and suddenly stylists were reaching out.” After Raye wore one of her creations when she was an opening act for Swift’s Eras Tour last year, having Swift herself wear one of her chokers felt like a serendipitous full-circle moment for Jaques.

Yet even before this moment, Anayah was a celebrity favourite, with stars like Kareena Kapoor Khan and Athiya Shetty already fans of the brand. “Technically, the name Anayah existed before 2019,” the India-born designer explains. “But back then, we were just buying from manufacturers and reselling. It wasn’t our creativity.” The turning point came when Jaques—then working by the day as a banker with Lloyds—was on maternity leave in the quiet, uncertain months before the Covid-19 pandemic. “Everyone was worried about what to do next. But because I was starting fresh, I used that time to rebrand and build something from scratch.”

Instead of stocking pieces, Jaques began sketching and designing her own. Her first was a statement choker that she made for a wedding exhibition in London, which she still retails. Today, her dramatic choker necklaces are a creative marker of the brand’s signature aesthetic. One of her most popular pieces—the Roza choker—features three lines of gold-plated brass chainlinks stacked atop each other, with a suspended emerald-green doublet stone. “My sister-in-law, who along with my brother works in the business with me, thought it looked too gaudy when it came back from the workshop,” Jaques laughs. “But the people loved it. So, we fixed it up, launched it, and it went nuts.”

If 2024 was about quiet, understated, minimalist luxury, this festive season buyers everywhere are swinging the other way. “People are going big,” Jaques observes. “Maximalism is having a clear moment: chunky bangles with meenakari and polki, bold chokers, and statement danglers. Even Western audiences are leaning into it.” For Jaques, this makes for the perfect playing field for her brand. “Anayah’s aesthetic is very colour-driven. I love red and green stones, but I like using them in a way that’s palatable to a Western audience. It’s rooted in South Asian design, but it doesn’t scream wedding jewellery.”

Along with playing with scale and colour, Jaques also finds herself constantly experimenting with materials. She has already begun rethinking some of her classic pieces with leather-wrapped chains, even switching metal for fabric to hold together her chokers. Design experiments with carbon fibre are also underway as we speak.

Riding this immense high, Jaques shows no signs of rushing into fine jewellery in the near future. “We’re in this beautiful sweet spot where we’re aspirational but accessible,” she says. “A few bespoke pieces might happen, but our core is fashion-forward design.” And the Swift moment? She’s enjoying it but not obsessing over the follow-up. “I don’t need the validation, but yes, the brand did. Now, I just need to keep doing good work. If we do that, the next big moment will come.”