This year, a bit of Sindh made its debut at Paris Fashion Week when luxury jewellery designer Sundus Talpur took her gold and silver collection to Tranoï Palais de la Bourse.
Talpur’s work explores graphical vocabulary and the physicality of Sindhi and Balochi textile and carries tales of their histories.
According to Talpur, the brand explores the ability of jewelry design to ground these embodied narratives in contemporary design. Each element contains details of hand-weave and embroidery.
Talpur said that she ended up in Paris after a PR and sales agency reached out to her.
“I was approached by L’adresse Paris agency, run by Amal Sultan, a Pakistani living in Paris. She found me on Instagram and approached me by the end of 2019,” she explained. “We sent my brand details, brand story, designs and look books/catalogues to the Tranoï and PFW selection committee where I got selected,” explained Talpur, a graduate of the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture.
Talpur did her Masters from Central Saint Martins in London in jewellery design in 2017.
L’adresse fosters relationships within the global fashion community. Sultan has a personal interest in taking young Pakistani brands global by sourcing, consulting and developing them to global standards. L’adresse has showcased several brands from Pakistan at PFW in the past such as Hussain Rehar, Zuria Dor and Ahsan Nazir. Warp and the House of Cali have shown with L’adresse at PFW multiple times.
It has all been so exciting for me, Talpur said. “To be picked by L’adresse, getting through the selection process at Tranoï and seeing my products on par with international standards, literally in the fashion capital of the world.”
She added that it was an honour to represent Pakistan on the level of Tranoï and Paris Fashion Week. Talking about her collection, Talpur said that her gold collection, Dorr, was inspired by heritage textiles and embroideries, with materials sourced from artisans in Sindh.
“Each piece in this collection was built in collaboration with an artisan from Sindh. I source my textiles from the artisans and use them to create my signature texture on all my pieces,” she said. “Each piece comes with a card crediting any hand weaver or hand embroidery artist involved in the process.”
The silver collection features her signature textile texture but has a more contemporary design. “They are sculptural pieces comprising of hand sculpted portraits, textured earrings and bands. It was an ode to my pre-jewellery, sculpture days,” she said.
