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“I don’t love to design, I live to design”

By Farah Khan-Ali on October 12, 2016

Jewellery designer to the celebrities and Bollywood stars, Mumbai-based Farah Khan-Ali, strikes a balance between her training as a gemologist and her own creative vision to come up with exquisite and intriguing masterpieces. She insists on being a perfectionist who loves to please herself first so that she can eventually please her clients

I did not decide to be a jewellery designer. Fate willed it. After my graduation I was toying with the idea of different professions when a friend of mine decided to do a course in Gemology at GIA (the Gemological Institute of America) in Los Angeles.

Since I needed an excuse to get away, I convinced my father that I too wanted to do gemology and promised him that I would top my class. Of course I had no idea what the course entailed as at that point all I wanted to do was ‘party’ in LA for six months at a stretch. When I landed in LA, I was in for a shock as gemology turned out to be the study of the chemical, optical and physical properties of 99 minerals and their gemstone varieties. There was nothing subjective about the course and it left me with no choice but to study day and night.

My party plans ended and I eventually topped my class with a 97 per cent. Once I had acquired knowledge on gemstones, I decided that I might as well put it to use and try my hand at jewellery designing especially since I was good at sketching and always liked drawing. So I enrolled in the jewellery design course at GIA under the tutelage of Robert Ahrens, a jewellery designer who had worked for 23 years with Van Clef and Arpels in LA, and there began my journey as a jewellery designer.

Read the full article in 'Viva Goa' magazine copy. Viva Goa magazine is now on stands. Available at all major book stalls and supermarkets in Goa.