Meet the DJ making jadau bling for your teeth

Hearts. Flowers. Butterflies. Emojis. Sculptural floating letters that spell out a name. Brand logos. In the world of oral jewellery, if you can imagine it, you can wear it on your teeth, and Frostbite Lab, a Mumbai-based jewellery brand, is making some of the most imaginative grills, or bejewelled mouthpieces, in India.

“When people think of grills, they usually think of hip-hop and of something that’s very loud and out there. But today, a lot of the designs are very minimal and can complement your everyday outfit,” explains Shrikesh Choksi, 30, the founder of Frostbite Lab.

Becoming a grill designer was never the plan. A Business and Finance graduate from the University of Southern California (USC), Choksi moved back to Mumbai in December 2019 and worked at a venture capital firm full-time while DJ-ing on the weekends. Then came the nationwide lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, and an oddly specific dream featuring A$AP Rocky. “It’s kind of embarrassing,” he laughs. “The dream was A$AP wearing a set of grills like he generally does. I woke up the next day thinking about how grills are made. And of course, it was in the midst of a lockdown, so we had all the time in the world to think of stuff.”

And think he did. Choksi spent weeks down a rabbit hole of YouTube tutorials, looking up grill artists across the world and setting up Zoom calls with them. “I spoke with experts from Brazil, New York, and Tokyo, and almost 20 dentists,” he recalls. The first step was to make a set of grills for himself. “Luckily, I happened to have a friend here who is also a dentist. He connected me with his lab and helped me figure out the entire process.”

While Choksi’s family has been in the jewellery business for over three decades, grills were still an entirely new product category for their karigars. It took a year of research, finding the right team, and trial and error to get it right. The first set of grills he made—a plain silver set with no embellishments—was surprisingly comfortable. “Thirty minutes into wearing them, I didn’t even know I had them on,” he says. The designer, who has been DJing for the last decade, started wearing them to his gigs, where his friends and people from the fashion and music communities took notice. And that was the beginning of Frostbite Lab.

He insists that grills are for everyone. “I think grills have become synonymous with fashion. In Europe and Japan, a lot of people like to wear grills as an everyday accessory. It’s like wearing any other piece of jewellery, just another addition to your fit.”

Officially launched in 2022, Frostbite Lab has built a customer base that is as diverse as the designs it offers. “We’ve had some amazing people reach out from across the world and places in India I wouldn’t have expected orders from. We’ve even had older dentists who are curious about the products reach out to get a set for themselves,” says the self-taught designer. Each design is custom made, created exclusively for the wearer. “Fun fact, dental impressions were actually used like fingerprints before fingerprint readers became a thing. So when people tell me, ‘Oh, can I just wear someone else’s grills?’ It’s impossible because everyone’s teeth are very, very unique to them.” Frostbite’s designs have caught the attention of stylists and celebrities, including notable names from the music world, like AP Dhillon, Krsna, Raftaar, and Shah Rule, who all now have bespoke Frostbite Lab grills.

Offering everything from classic metal outlines (the “window grill”) to fully iced-out diamond designs, anything is achievable according to Choksi: “Design-wise, the sky’s the limit.” Prices begin at Rs 4,500 per tooth, and can climb up depending on the materials and the intricacy of the design, not unlike fine jewellery.

Frostbite Lab’s latest collection incorporates traditional Indian jewellery techniques. “I was just thinking about how to stand out in the grills game globally,” recalls Choksi. Inspiration struck one day while he was hanging out in the office of his family business in Zaveri Bazaar (where all the materials are also sourced from). “I was looking at all these mangalsutras with kundan and jadau work—super intricate, really beautiful designs—and I thought, ‘This on a tooth would look really cool.’”

The collection wasn’t easy to execute. It took Choksi and his team over six months to bring his vision to life. But once it launched on Instagram last month, the response was overwhelming. “Grill makers from across the world that I’ve looked up to from when I started my journey just followed me last week. So, I’m really happy. But one of the grills we haven’t yet released—a full top set with meenakari—I think will go viral too. It’s honestly really fucking cool,” he grins.

Beyond grills, Frostbite Lab has also expanded into jewellery. In July last year, the brand launched ‘Motifs of Mumbai’, a collection of stainless-steel bracelets, chains, pendants, and rings inspired by the elements from the city’s architecture and streets (read paver blocks and local-train floors).

“I realised there’s no one doing cool men’s jewellery that’s both design-centric and has a bit of a narrative behind it,” Choksi says. This week, he’s dropping a few pieces that incorporate colour through enamel work, crafted in brass and sterling silver. “I don’t like to explicitly position it as men’s jewellery, but given our design language and the size of the jewellery, it’s a little chunkier, more masculine. But a lot of our customers have been women as well. So, this capsule also has new categories like chokers, earrings, and waist chains, which are very playful, colourful, and fun.”

As for how his DJ career ties into all this? “There’s been a lot of synergy. DJing lets me meet all these really cool people, and I get to have Frostbite Lab pop-ups at venues that would otherwise charge brands a lot of money. Fashion and music already intersect a lot—it’s just about finding ways to connect the dots.”