Dookdi's founder, Jinal Patel, always had a fascination with insects. How these small creature live, survive and came to exist in the shapes and forms we see all around us? The brand taces back its origins to when Patel used to make earrings inspired by insects as gifts for her sister. With the introduction of metal, Patel translated the sharpness of beetles, the intricacies of a moth and the delicate wings of a butterfly into jewellery. evolved her passion into the brand.
In this converation, she tells us everything about her fascination with the insects, her origins and how she evolved her passion into a brand.
What made you make jewellery inspired by insects?
Organisms fascinated me even in my previous artistic process as a sculptor. It’s more like not starting with the desire to make something as more of listening to that which wants to be done. The dictation of materials. The interest in ‘form’; a particular way in which things exist or appear, gives me an opportunity to experience the unknown space within. Different organisms become vehicle of the inner mental projections. The evolution of form in nature inspires me whether in insects /moths/seeds/leaves or parts of them the way they are why and how everything become! The final rendition mutate with my personal experience and aesthetic choice. What unfolds is in transition of an ongoing process as a jeweller/maker.
Why did you name the brand 'Dookdi'?
Unfolding the full story for the first time after five years now. I did not study jewellery. Even as a student I was working as a freelance sculptor in an environmental based organization on and off to cater my interest in organisms. In between I was going through a very difficult state of mind of a broken long term relationship. After so long I could gather the courage to go back to some work. I was spending lot of free time to make some realistic renderings of insects. Initially just to divert my mind and to know more about them. After making many, I thought of turning them functional. In the journey, they turned into earrings and became regular gifts to my sister. The physical difficulty of making two exact same realistic pieces in a pair resonated with my state of mind that time contemplating on duality within and outside. My interest in organisms and evolution of forms extended differently when I was introduced a metal sheet by a friend and a mentor. I took it as my anchor and the process healed me slowly. It offered an abstraction of its own when metal sheet came into play.
After a year of exploring it just felt to give this process a name and my focus was on ‘a pair in which the two are similar but not same.’ My mom who was always supportive of my weirdest adventures took this as a challenge with me to find weirdest word related to this and found ‘Dookdi’ -a morpheme-‘sandhi’ of ‘do’ ‘kadi’ in Hindi. Translated as ‘two rings’. Metaphorically, a pair who associate with one another in a way but sing their own songs. I wanted to keep it as open as possible being aware of my process , eventually extends to two circles of life moving in their own natural flow.
What sort of feeling do you aspire to give your customers when they wear your jewellery?
I like observing how customers perceive and interact with the pieces specially at events and pop ups. I constantly reflect and reinvent my aesthetics. If I am able to translate the non-tangible experiences to an object and successfully able to make a sense out of this process which also resonate with some people, I feel elated.
A lot of our neckpieces have no closures/locks. Some are open collar (paradox collar) which are worn from back and sits around the neck. Some half torques (sojourn half torque) which hangs on your collar bone. Some are like extension to your neck which closes like a stethoscope on the vertebra (conflux neckx’tension) Some earrings have two body parts attached with a metal stick behind to give a mystery how they are sticking together (tortoise beetle earrings). I like to experiment the wearability around pieces. Of course, it has commercial challenges but huge creative satisfaction to me. This kind of confrontations gives me a space to be! Initially not accepted fully by the wearer but slowly they were embraced and recognized.
Our very first collection have varied spontaneous pieces which were amalgamation of my very first encounter with the material ‘copper sheet’ and exploring few forms I was meandering with it. It took various turns with the character of the material when brass was introduced As bare metal and the weather effects it offered on its skin. The sheet metal completely moulded my classical realistic sculptural training and the transitions in the material inspired the pieces further. The abstraction It offered turned more into their essence than its appearance and rest followed. It resonated to my process by itself with time. The second collection was more deliberate and dark ,more firm in the aesthetics and entirely dedicated to the kingdom of moths juxtaposing the pensive state of no-where-ness.
In these many years we are slowly about to launch our very third collection of pieces which are enlarged eccentric distorted body parts sit on the human body the pieces are for those who embrace them like shields and armours externalizing thy selves serving like extensions of the senses.
What are your aspirations for Dookdi?
As I said everything happened with its own flow so I would rather leave it to be my strength and my path in understanding myself and the things around me and I wish it continues to make me learn. I wish to make it reach to people who resonate with the process.
Words Paridhi Badgotri
Date 03.04.2024