All That Glitters – January 2016

Somewhere between looking for the good in people and finding magic in the ordinary, she designed her way to the top. Farah Khan Ali luxury jewellery designer tells us why you need to love what you do above all else

DID YOU START OUT WITH AN AIM IN MIND? DID YOU EVER THINK THAT YOU WOULD BE REFERRED TO AS THE ‘JEWELER TO THE STARS’ TODAY?
I didn’t get into my profession to make money or to be successful. I got into it because I was very passionate about it. I believe that if you do something, you do it all or nothing. You put in your best and let your work speak for itself. I didn’t have any agenda to be the ‘jeweler to the stars’ or a brand to reckon with when I started out. Even today, I’m still learning. I put in more than 100% and those efforts are recognized by people and it shows in my work. I just love to create, I live to design. For me pictures speak more than words, it’s very important for me to depict what I’m saying visually. I’m an extreme personality, eccentric to the core, unpredictable and somewhere in all that chaos, I find myself. But at the same time, I’m extremely focused and disciplined. You have to be eccentric to be creative and you need the discipline to come up with something beautiful.

WHERE DO YOU DERIVE YOUR INSPIRATION FROM?
I’m a creative person. I like viewing beauty in everything I see. When I was growing up, my mum always used to tell us to look for goodness in people and beauty in things. Don’t look for what you don’t have and focus on what you do have. When I see something that attracts me, be it nature, colors, architecture or any form that captivates me, I just view it in a magical perspective. All of us think alike, but the way we perceive things and interpret it is what makes us all different. Any form that can hold my attention for more than a minute can transform into something beautiful.

YOU’VE COME A LONG WAY, WHAT WERE SOME OF THE CHALLENGES YOU FACED ALONG YOUR JOURNEY?
The greatest challenge I faced was learning the hard way. Contrary to what people believe that hailing from a Bollywood family, my parents must have set me up to start my own store and do my own thing. But the truth is, I worked my way to the top. My father always believed that an education was the best legacy he could leave me and I admire and respect him for that. I struggled for many years of my life and it took me 18 years to start my own store. I had to put everything I made into it. I also learned a lot along the way. This industry is very closed; they don’t encourage outsiders to get into it. I had a few bad incidences with people but every roadblock in my way was a stepping stone to further success.

Volume 5 Issue 7