Bauble passion!

“I remember telling my mom I wanted to be a botanist,” says 23-year-old Priyanka Choksi on her earliest ambition. “I think it was because it was a word that no one had heard of — it sounded
exotic and no one really knew what it meant,” she laughs.

Born into a high-profile jewellery family, Priyanka has always been surrounded by ‘sparklers’. “That’s why my interests over the years have been as far away as possible from jewellery — because coming from a jewellery family, every possible gift that I got was always jewellery; it was a never a doll or things that you would want growing up.”

After studying at Columbia University, New York, Priyanka returned to the city looking to pursue a career in the arts. “I did a lot of theatre productions whilst I was at Columbia and I loved it. I love the arts, I really do! So I came back to Mumbai wanting to produce plays or a film — I was even open to Bollywood. I looked into it and was writing a script for awhile.”

But then things suddenly changed. “I went looking for an engagement ring and just couldn’t find the right one,” says Priyanka, who scoured a multitude of stores in various cities before finally ending up in New York at a boutique specialising only in wedding, engagement and anniversary rings. And instead of buying just a ring, she decided to bring down the entire brand.

“The best piece of advice my dad ever gave me was ‘You are not going to learn unless you just go for it’ — and that’s what I did,” smiles Priyanka, who soon realised that jewellery was in her DNA.

“For me, jewellery is a mix of business and aesthetics. What I’m looking for is classicism in jewellery, something you can wear every day of your life.”

In-between readying up for her marriage (which will see her shuttling between Belgium and Mumbai) and store expansion plans, Priyanka’s not going to ignore her other passion. “I’m very keen on doing Shakespeare adaptations,” she says, “like I loved Omkara and would love to do something similar someday.”