Sunny Jain, the founder of the Bavna jewelry brand, talks about his love of color, nature and Oprah.
Can you tell us about your latest collection?
[It uses] 18-karat yellow gold and rose-cut diamonds with a satin finish. It’s a very versatile collection. It’s simple and understated and very different from my last collection, which focused on bold colors. To me, it resembles the desert.
What are your sources of inspiration?
Travel and nature. It’s no secret I’m a nature junkie. I find nature is the only way to remove distractions from our busy lives. As Thoreau said, “the question is not what you look at, but what you see.” You and I, for instance, could look at the same horizon, but the inspiration we draw from it — what we see and what we might create — would be and would look completely different. And that’s what I love about nature and design. It’s eternal. It’s infinite. And that’s the feeling I try to capture in my designs.
Which women, famous or otherwise, do you admire the most?
Oprah — need I say more?
Who is the dream Bavna woman?
She’s bold. She’s adventurous. She knows what she likes.
How do you work with diamonds?
I design jewelry in two categories: diamond jewelry and jewelry with diamonds. When I’m designing diamond jewelry, I love the aesthetic of using lots of smaller diamonds and making the pieces unique by mixing size, color and depths to create different textures. It’s all about texture. You’ll notice a lot of pieces where I’ve purposefully flipped diamonds upside down to create contrast and texture. When I’m designing jewelry with diamonds, I make sure that the focus is not on the diamonds. The diamonds are just there to accentuate.
Which gemstones do you most enjoy creating with?
That’s a loaded question! I generally prefer working with color. Fire opal, Paraiba tourmaline, the list goes on. Mixing stones and colors — that’s where I have the most fun and where I feel I have the most autonomy.
What do you see as the big jewelry trends of 2018?
Bigger, bolder, better.
Who is Sunny Jain?
“My mother has been in this business for almost 30 years,” says Sunny Jain, owner of Los Angeles-based brand Bavna. “When I was growing up, she was going to shows every weekend, and being that I was too young to stay home alone, she would take me and my brother with her. We actually had a blast, and some of my best childhood memories were at those shows. That was how I first got a taste of this industry.”
He later pursued and completed a medical degree, “but my passion drew me back to jewelry,” he recalls. “I knew I wanted to create my own line, so in 2008, I founded Bavna, named after my mother. This journey has really brought me full circle.”
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