What’s better than an embellished blouse? One with jewellery on it

If you, like us, grew up on a steady diet of Bollywood, you already know jewellery carries more plot than many heroes. The jhumka that fell in a Bareilly bazaar. The chandbali that turned into a Reels anthem. Madhuri’s lost bangles in Dil Toh Pagal Hai that practically launched romance for an entire generation.

Now fashion’s shiny side is staging a quiet coup. Jewels are bored of wrists and ears. They want acreage, they want fabric. For anyone not keen on the real jingle-jangle life and terrified that a dupatta will hook itself onto a diamond like a needy toddler at a wedding, fear not. Designers have found a new playground. They are embroidering and weaving jewellery motifs straight into textiles.

It began for me at The Wedding Collective, where Kolkata-based Divya Sheth unveiled a remarkable Mughal Court bejewelled coat. The naturally dyed silk glimmered with hand-embroidered beads, pearls arranged like a satlada necklace, an emerald-accented chandbali, bangles, even a tiny sarpech. The coat looked as if the Nizams’ cabinet of bijoux had decided to reincarnate as outerwear. “The beads used are actual jewel quality,” Sheth said. The piece could sit easily at a wedding or pair with grey formal trousers and a shirt. Her skill lies in the balancing act. The coat behaves like clothing, yet shimmers like a reliquary. And like a magpie, once you spot something shiny you start catching it in unexpected corners.

Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla’s precision-heavy couture now also includes real jewellery pieces. “To integrate precious metals with delicate weaves creates a vision of luxury that feels intrinsic to our aesthetic. Our concept blouses with real jadau, freshwater pearls, emeralds, rubies, and other gemstones have found a discerning audience,” shared Khosla. Isha Ambani wore one that sparked an entire mood at her brother Anant Ambani’s wedding. The choli featured actual fine-jewellery pendants, brooches and other bejewelled components, all sourced from around Gujarat and Kutch. Similarly, their custom sehra-inspired ensemble created for Natasha Poonawalla for the same wedding featured a kurta swaying with strings of pearls and stones reminiscent of a groom’s turban.

More recently, Neena Gupta stepped out in a black maxi dress by her multitalented daughter Masaba Gupta. The columnar silhouette carries a magnified version of the designer’s Pankh Bagh motif edged with embroidery that takes cues from a pair of earrings in her jewellery line. “As a design language, jewellery motifs work like cultural hieroglyphics. Meanwhile, the feather signals blessings, movement, grace, and spiritual protection,” Gupta said.

Meanwhile, Swati & Sunaina have long nurtured this idea. Their single-edition Banarasi saris are owned by those in the know. “The idea of creating jewel-like motifs came from our own jewellery,” Swati Agarwal said. “We inherited vintage pieces, and their craftsmanship stayed with us. We converted those details into patterns for our saris. The challenge was creating a three-dimensional effect on a flat surface. We used light and shadow, zari, and colour to suggest the roundness of pearls in the Rati sari and the depth of jadau in the Gehna sari.” Their jhumki pattern from the Esha sari has since travelled far, now seen in Banaras and Chanderi silk as digital prints and block prints.

Studio Nirjara, a younger brand based in Ahmedabad, brings a gentler mood, almost scholarly. Their necklace kurta sets features embroideries that echo the many layers of a satlada, yet the design itself does not mimic any specific jewel. Instead, the designers studied the flourishes on old manuscript covers, the gold borders, and arches that once framed early-edition books to create their own ‘jewelled’ yoke.

But of course, the progenitor of them all was Tarun Tahiliani, who has been asking his models to cosplay the modern maharani in T-shirts printed with motifs of jewellery mashed up with miniature paintings since early in his career.

Taken together, these treasure-worthy pieces offer a fresh dressing proposition. Jewellery motifs let you perform opulence without heaviness; they draw on family heirlooms without bearing the weight of family history.

And if some of these pieces feel a little self-aware, a little flirty, a little like they know they could outshine their wearer in a dim room, that is exactly their charm.