Lahore-Mom-turned-entrepreneur, Eman Iftikhar is a Jewellever who is running a jewellery brand that turns your kids doodles and squiggles into timeless pieces for you.
Eman, the woman behind the adorable venture, explains how she was inspired to start the business by her daughter who is going through an intense creative phase.
In a brief encounter with The Nation, Eman talks about her career and success. Following are the excerpts.
What first led you in the direction of making Children’s doodle into wearable art?
My daughter is six and going through an intense creative phase. She doodles and draws hundreds of unicorns and princesses and then it all ends up stuffed in my bag, my bedside table, you name it.
Preserving all of this was impossible. So that sparked the idea that what if you could give parents a chance to treasure their children’s art for years. And that’s how Jewellever was born.
How did you arrive at the style
you are working in currently?
We gave it a lot of thought and discussed it at length. The entire idea was to preserve the art work in its true essence, so that became our governing style.
What materials or tools do you use to create your work? Do you have any
favorite techniques or processes that you are willing to share?
We offer three different varieties; 18Karat gold, sterling silver and metal alloy plus stainless steel.
Around 80% of our doodles are hand crafted with pliers to maneuver the material and a soldering torch to piece it together. And, as for the extremely intricate doodles we use a laser guided machine that carves it into metal, the lettering and engraving is done through graphic input.
Our personal favourite is carving figures using a hand sculpting tool.
What has been the single most important jewelry-making skill you’ve learned and why?
I have no formal degree in jewellery making and since this is a passion I wouldn’t categorize it as a skill rather an important value that I have learnt which is to connect to each piece and treat it as uniquely as the artist who made it in the first place.
What inspires your creativity when making a new piece of jewelry?
As adults, we forget what it feels like to create with our hearts and not our minds. Studying the artwork and connecting with the artist before we can craft it into jewellery is our standard practice.
What challenges do you face in your work?
I think what makes us lose sleep a little bit is making sure that we mould and transform images in a way that makes them aesthetically pleasing but with extreme care so that they don’t lose their true essence.
So what are you working on next, and where can we see more of your work?
Currently it’s just about getting the word out. We’re very lucky that it has reached all circles of Lahore and we have received a lot of love across the border too. We’re the first of our kind jewellery brand in Pakistan who’s doing this and right now we only exist online. But the plan is to exhibit our work at jewellery expos and exhibitions across Pakistan and eventually at bigger hubs such as Dubai and London.
Why the name Jewellever?
It was very simple and the idea was to make Jewellery that lasts forever. From the talented little artists who have created it with love and for all the mums, dads, khalas, phuppos and grand mums in their lives, we wanted to give them a chance to immortalize that happy moment.