True design fans know that the discovery of a truly exciting find can come down to simply where you go hunting. Luckily, Mumbai is now home to Swadesh, a new pilgrimage site for fans of handcrafted, artisanal decor, fashion, jewellery, furniture, art, and more. Located in the stately Eros Cinema building, a beacon of Art Deco architecture, your first sight of the store is the building’s distinctive ziggurat outline followed by the lavish marble foyer that greets you at the entrance.
Inside, the expansive two-storey space is like a shoppable art gallery that showcases the finest of India’s artisanal skills. The interiors gently echo that theme with cabinets decorated with brass inlay and walls featuring thikri work.
A walkthrough of the store is not to be done in a rush. Instead, you’ll want to meander past the polished brass sculptures of peaceful deities, spend time gazing at the pichwai paintings, pull out a magnifying glass to get a closer look at the jewellery, and get lost in the fine work on a rare hand-knotted silk Kashmiri carpet. Tucked away on the second floor is a showroom, the Masters Pavillion, which houses the rarest of the rare—auction-house-worthy finds that are truly singular and offer a deeper understanding of the craft each represents. Take, for instance, a reproduction of a Mughal miniature painting by Jayprakash Lakhiwal, a National Award-winning painter; a sculpture of a traditional home by renowned metal sculptor Narayan Chandra Biswas; or a vibrant marble inlay tabletop embedded with floral vines, fruit, and flowers, made with semi-precious stones, a rainbow of colours on a polished white base by an artisan named Aslam.
