Anmol Vaswani, founder of the jewellery label Love Letter, grew up wanting to be a designer. She can’t remember a single moment during her childhood when she didn’t want to be a fashion designer. Hence, she ended up at Parsons School of Design to study apparel design. Talking about her shift to jewellery design, she tells me, ‘in hindsight, I think the best thing about going there for my undergraduate degree was that they helped cultivate a more holistic sense of design. I was led towards jewellery design some time before starting Love Letter, just out of curiosity and itchy palms to take a swing at something totally foreign to me as a material or discipline. I wanted to play around and have fun with it, and I think that's a big reason why Love Letter has naturally come to stand for ‘fun’ to me and a lot of its patrons.’
During the pandemic, Love Letter evolved into a full-fledged label, and a means for Anmol to channel all her creative energy. She adds, ‘some savings from my early 20s and a little courage to finally put my creative work out there led to the label.’ Fun, flirty and evoking nostalgia of the 90s, Love Letter stands for playfulness, with sustainability at its core. ‘A lot of the vacation vibe comes from Goa, which has become home to me and my family in the past decade, and the feeling of wanderlust we all ached with throughout 2020,’ asserts Anmol. Talking more about the playfulness, she explains how she attempts to work around different maturity levels. There are times when she designs things she wants her niece to put on and there are times when she’ll design keeping her mother in mind. She breaks it down further, ‘I have come to believe that a narrative comes very naturally to a brand, if they are authentic and true to their story. If you're forcing a narrative around a brand, it shows. In the age of extensive digital media and constant interactions with your customers, it's very important to stay real.’
During the pandemic, Love Letter evolved into a full-fledged label, and a means for Anmol to channel all her creative energy. She adds, ‘some savings from my early 20s and a little courage to finally put my creative work out there led to the label.’ Fun, flirty and evoking nostalgia of the 90s, Love Letter stands for playfulness, with sustainability at its core. ‘A lot of the vacation vibe comes from Goa, which has become home to me and my family in the past decade, and the feeling of wanderlust we all ached with throughout 2020,’ asserts Anmol. Talking more about the playfulness, she explains how she attempts to work around different maturity levels. There are times when she designs things she wants her niece to put on and there are times when she’ll design keeping her mother in mind. She breaks it down further, ‘I have come to believe that a narrative comes very naturally to a brand, if they are authentic and true to their story. If you're forcing a narrative around a brand, it shows. In the age of extensive digital media and constant interactions with your customers, it's very important to stay real.’
The Island Girl with the world handed to her was the muse for the latest fall collection. The goal was to explore mindfully chosen natural materials derived from the earth and interpret them the Love Letter way. Semi precious stones, a new material for Love Letter, became the center of this collection. Due to the inherent raw and organic nature of the stones used, no two pieces are alike. Each vary slightly in both shade and shape making each piece special. The color palette was picked to celebrate the season of fall but with an island twist while staying true to Love Letter’s love for color. With 20 unique designs, this collection is spread across necklaces, bracelets and earrings. A big focus here was to let the customers play with charms almost like their own seaside finds that they could mix and match to create their own little capsule. Some of the materials used included Green Sapphire, Amethyst, Amazonite, Cultivated Coral, Freshwater Pearls, Shells, Recycled Plastic and Glass amongst others.
When the designer is not busy ideating and working on her mood board, she is focused on making sure the blueprint for Love Letter is as sustainable as possible. Elucidating on the measures taken, Anmol adds, ‘our signature collection — which is also our bestselling collection and is the core offering of the brand, available perennially — is made from GRS certified recycled plastic. In addition, we've been exploring other sustainable materials like ethical lab-grown diamonds and responsibly sourced precious and semi-precious stones. We've also started working with an NGO, where we employ the women enrolled in their Vocational Training program and teach them a new craft as a way for them to gain financial independence. We just launched, in April, the first product we made with them — our Gemma belt.’
Date 09-11-2021
