Christian Louboutin, Olympia Le-Tan, and More Are Selling Beautiful, Handmade Plates for a Wonderful Cause 

Ravi Mistry

In a joyful coalescence of philanthropy, design, and time-honored craftsmanship, a set of handmade marble plates will be auctioned off in Mumbai this weekend as Isha Ambani Piramal, the actress Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, and architect and interior designer Rooshad Shroff raise funds for a new girls school in Jaisalmer, India. (CITTA, a nonprofit organization in New York, is spearheading the construction.)

The plates, made in strictly limited quantities and sold online from December 1 until today, are the creations of 12 prominent figures from the spheres of architecture, interior design, visual art, and fashion, in India and beyond. (Among them are Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla, the design duo tapped to style Priyanka Chopra Jonas’s extravagant Umaid Bhawan Palace wedding last year; along with Olympia Le-Tan and Christian Louboutin). The final edition of each one, plus a selection of objets d‘art by Louboutin and the Delhi-based artist Tanya Goel, will be on the auction block chez Ambani Piramal.

Needless to say, the pieces are much too pretty to use as anything but decor: Each one was hand-made in Agra, where a family of artisans employed by Shroff dutifully inlaid lapis lazuli, malachite, and other semi-precious stones. In the two motifs designed by Louboutin, bheslana-black stilettos—some with tell-tale red soles—dance before geometric white, green, and cream backdrops; while the fashion designer Anamika Khanna’s mosaic-like plate is an explosion of artfully mismatched patterns and tones.

Creating one of Anamika Khanna's plates.

Photo: Rooshad Shroff 

Others see a tiger prowling the façade of the Taj Mahal (care of designer Sabyasachi Mukherji); and a pair of eyes gazing curiously from a stark, white ground (by architect and professor Bijoy Jain). The marble inlay technique used, sometimes known as pietra dura, has existed in Agra since at least the 17th century, when it entered Asia from Italy.

The designer plate conceit was developed by Shroff, who has worked with marble inlay in his own work for years and endeavored to support CITTA’s efforts “through design and craft.” “Being an architect and designer, my strength is working with the materials and crafts of India,” he says. “The project not only helps raise funds for CITTA, but it also created employment for over a year for my artisans in Agra.” A worthy cause indeed.