A lawn-variety ‘slicing chai’ glass is elevated into a stylish champagne flute. A not easily seen lota (vessel) finds delight in a location in its new avatar as a decorative jar. Unapologetically unconventional in design, yet deeply rooted inside the Indian milieu, these domestic decor items are a part of the 21-piece series through Ikki’s, the new emblem from designer Gunjan Gupta, launched at Maison & Objet in advance this year. Ikki’s—which actually interprets to ‘twenty-one’ in Hindi—launches with 21 items designed for the 21st century. Each item is firmly entrenched in a thing of the day-to-day life in India and is an Indian at heart as it is contemporary in shape. Seemingly everyday gadgets like the balti (bucket), Kuchar (earthen mugs) are reinterpreted and uplifted into works of art.
This juxtaposition between the conventional and the cutting-edge isn’t new territory for Gunjan Gupta, founder and innovative director of Ikki’s. For over a decade now, Gupta has been growing current relevance for declining Indian handicrafts through her self-named logo, and Ikki’s follows a similar philosophy. “My eponymous domestic decor gadgets logo is an inventive vision incorporating indigenous materials, capabilities, and narratives into sculptural objects, which are symbolic of cutting-edge India and fall under the collectible layout category. Ikki’s is a product-design emblem that contains the same spirit and is focused on the direction of the layout of items, which can be time-honored for application, characteristic, and regular dwelling.”
