Picture a bride in a traditional lehenga, ditching her polki or kundan choker, or even a satlada for a sculptural collar. For TORA & TORY founder Jasmeet Raj Nagrath, jewellery is less about occasion and more about identity. Drawing from engineering, architecture, geology and the natural world, he's challenging conventions around how jewellery is designed, worn and defined. As modern brides and grooms move beyond coordinated sets and conventional codes, his genderless, sculptural pieces offer a fresh way to approach the wedding wardrobe—where heirlooms, innovation and individual expression can coexist. Here's an excerpt from the interview.
Manifest: What inspired you to create the brand, and what was the idea behind it?
Jasmeet Raj Nagrath: TORA & TORY began with frustration, specifically frustration with how jewellery is defined, made and perceived. I kept asking myself why centuries of Indian jewellery-making techniques and the skill of our karigars remain largely unrecognised globally, and why so much of that knowledge has been reduced to a few established categories and processes. I also questioned why jewellery is still so heavily divided into men's and women's, and why something so personal is often reserved for occasions rather than being part of how we express ourselves every day. The brand was born from those questions. I didn't want to build another jewellery label that took an existing formula and gave it a different aesthetic. I wanted to understand the object from first principles. What can the material do? What happens if we borrow from engineering? What can architecture, geology, sculpture or automotive design teach us about jewellery? That became TORA & TORY. A creative house where jewellery is treated as an intersection of design, engineering, craftsmanship, culture and emotion. We spent 22 months in research and development across the automotive, technology, medical and jewellery industries before launching. The objective was never simply to make something different. It was to find a better way to make it.
M: TORA & TORY deliberately rejects the traditional division between men’s and women’s jewellery. What have you observed about the way people are actually wearing jewellery today?
JRN: The industry is far more interested in categorising people than people are in categorising themselves. A ring doesn't know whether it's being worn by a man or a woman. Neither does an earring, a cuff or a necklace. The classification exists around the object, not within it. What I see increasingly is that people are choosing jewellery based on connection rather than category. They respond to the form, the material, the technique, or the story behind a piece. That is much more interesting to me than designing something and deciding beforehand who is allowed to wear it. TORA & TORY doesn't design for men or women. We design for people who are drawn to something because it means something to them. Jewellery has always been an extension of identity. I don't see why identity needs a gender label attached to it.
M: For the modern bride and groom, who may be less interested in conventional matching jewellery and more interested in individual expression, how can TORA & TORY become part of their wedding wardrobe?
JRN: I think the starting point is to stop thinking of wedding jewellery as a separate category of jewellery. A wedding is an occasion where people traditionally feel compelled to buy a certain kind of necklace, a certain kind of earring, a certain kind of brooch because that is what the occasion is supposed to require. I find that limiting. TORA & TORY can sit within a wedding wardrobe precisely because we don't design for the wedding. We design objects that happen to belong in that wardrobe. A sculptural collar can be worn with a traditional lehenga. A ring can sit alongside inherited jewellery. An architectural earring can completely change the way a conventional outfit reads. The same piece can then move into someone's everyday wardrobe long after the wedding is over. And that is where I think the opportunity is. Instead of building a jewellery wardrobe around occasions, build it around the person. Your wedding becomes one moment in which you wear those objects, not the reason they exist. I also don't think the jewellery between two people getting married needs to match. Their clothes don't necessarily have to match, their personalities certainly don't, so why should their jewellery? One might connect with a technically engineered piece, while the other might gravitate towards something more sculptural or understated. The most interesting wedding wardrobes, to me, will be the ones where tradition and contemporary design aren't competing with each other. They're simply being worn together because both pieces mean something to the person wearing them.
M: Could you see a bride pairing a traditional heirloom necklace with a sculptural TORA & TORY piece, or a groom wearing jewellery beyond the conventional brooch, cufflink or watch? What possibilities excite you most about the evolving wedding wardrobe?
JRN: Absolutely. In fact, that contrast is more interesting to me than a perfectly coordinated jewellery set. A traditional heirloom carries history. A contemporary object carries a different kind of story. Putting the two together creates a conversation between generations rather than trying to make everything look like it came from the same period. And yes, I would like to see people move beyond the idea that certain jewellery belongs to certain occasions or genders. If someone wants to wear a sculptural collar with a sherwani, a technically engineered cuff with a sari, or a large ring with a traditional heirloom necklace, why shouldn't they? The wedding wardrobe is one of the few spaces where people allow themselves to be excessive. I'd rather see that excess expressed through individuality and objects with meaning than through simply accumulating more jewellery.
M: You’ve translated waves, boulders, ripples and undulating surfaces into metal. How do you transform something as fluid and constantly changing as the ocean into a piece with permanence and structure?
JRN: The starting point isn't to literally reproduce the ocean. I'm interested in what the ocean does to matter. Waves create movement. Water reshapes stone over time. Ripples create patterns that exist for seconds and disappear. Boulders become irregular because of constant erosion. Those are physical behaviours, not just visual references. With GYRE, we translated those behaviours into structure. The undulations are built into the geometry of the pieces, while the boulder references come through in the irregularity and weight of certain forms. The engraved surfaces introduce another layer, catching light in a way that suggests movement without trying to illustrate water.
The challenge is to take something that is inherently transient and give it a permanent physical language. For example our patent pending Cliff Setting which mimics rocks jutting out of the ocean during low tide.
M: How do you make metal feel fluid? What techniques or processes allow you to create the sense of movement found in these pieces?
JRN: Fluidity in metal is ultimately a problem of form, proportion and engineering. Metal itself isn't fluid in the finished object, so the perception of movement has to come from the geometry. Curves, transitions, peaks, troughs and changes in surface tension create the illusion that the object is moving even though it is completely static. With GYRE, we worked with undulating forms and controlled surface changes rather than simply engraving waves onto a flat surface. The hand-push engraving adds another level of precision, allowing light to move across the surface as the wearer moves. I'm interested in making something look as though it has a physical behaviour that it technically shouldn't have. That's where design becomes interesting to me.
