Diamonds are sweet

In a year dedicated to brown-coloured diamonds, how does an Indian jewellery company with high-profile clientele including the royal family of Morocco and Saudi Arabia, and Bollywood stars, make a lifestyle statement?

It ties up with Patchi, a boutique Lebanese chocolate, in a co-branding exercise and hires a belly dancer to model for its latest jewellery designs.

Last afternoon, Mumbai-based Riviera Fine Jewels launched its coloured diamond and tourmaline collection at Maurya Sheraton's Maroush restaurant in Delhi. The super-premium collection was launched at a private do, over wine and a three-course Lebanese meal.

The three-day exhibition, which also includes designs in semi-precious stones such as tourmaline, peridot, chalcedony and citrine, can be viewed with prior appointment with Riviera promoters, the husband and wife team of Neville and Sabita Umrigar. The company did a similar jewel and chocolate show at the Taj in Mumbai last month.

"Both Riviera and Patchi chocolates are lifestyle brands which is why we decided to do a joint promotion," says Chetan Gokal, who launched the chocolate brand in Mumbai a year ago.

Patchi is expected to be launched in Delhi in July. The Umrigars say that brown diamonds will be the in thing this year. The price range for the earrings, bangles and necklaces on display starts at Rs 20,000 and runs into several lakhs.

Interestingly, Neville and Sabita Umrigar launched Riviera Fine Jewels in 1997, as they found white and yellow gold boring. "And everyone was doing emeralds with white gold and that sort of a thing," says Neville Umrigar, who's tried his luck in shipping and exports.

To begin with, the Umrigars started selling antique jewellery from Hyderabad. "We found that people were talking about getting a piece of jewellery from Bond Street and Tiffany's. We knew that there was a market for exclusive jewellery," he says.

Today, clients from Los Angeles fly down to London to see his collection, claims Umrigar and the company organises exhibitions in Delhi, Mumbai, London and Hong Kong.

It has four workshops in Mumbai's Zaveri Bazaar and employs about 40 people. "We mainly do exclusive one-off pieces so we rarely make beyond 80 pieces a month," he says. Riviera currently has offices in London, Singapore and Indonesia.

Meanwhile, Patchi is firming up its India plans: it will open a 30,000- sq ft Patchi Universe showroom which will stock chocolates and Patchi's furniture range called Maison de Patchi.

So after the wine and cheese dos, Riviera and Patchi may have started a new trend by co-branding jewellery with chocolate.