KJo’s ‘Tyaani’ Polki jewellery platform, navigates online jewellery market in India
Celebrated filmmaker Karan Johar’s Tyaani Jewellery has recently unveiled a new brand campaign titled ‘Forces of Tyaani’, celebrating real women wearing real jewellery. The campaign features Rasika Dugal, Shweta Tripathi, Shefali Shah, Tillotama Shome, Jiya Shankar and now Kalki Koechlin.
As per Shravan Satyani, Creative Head and Partner of “Tyaani ” goes on to explain that this campaign is deeply rooted in the belief that individuality is the rarest form of luxury and selection process of the brand ambassadors.
Notably, Tyaani Jewellery is credited as a big name as the world’s first online store specialising in Polki-Jadau jewellery, a traditional Indian art form that involves embedding uncut diamonds (known as Polki) and gemstones into softened gold using the Jadau technique, which does not rely on adhesives. The price range for Tyaani’s jewellery starts at Rs 26,500 and can go up to Rs 8,319,500.
According to an IMARC Group report, the overall Indian jewellery market was valued at $90.40 billion in 2024 and is expected to grow to $150.10 billion by 2033, at a CAGR of 5.2%.
The online jewellery market in India was valued at approximately $850 million in 2019 and is projected to grow to $3.7 billion by 2025, registering a CAGR of 28%, as per MyWisdomLane, a jewellery growth consulting website.
Notwithstanding the notable growth, the online jewellery market in India constituted only 2.3% of the overall Indian jewellery market in 2022-23. In comparison, the USA and China recorded online jewellery penetration rates of approximately 10.3% and 9%, respectively, in 2019.
Satyani further adds that ‘Tyaani is the first jewellery brand and pioneers of Polki jewellery built with commitment to ensure transparency and clarity in the Polki jewellery industry, often missing.”
Polki-Jadau jewellery is challenging to evaluate because of the absence of standardisation.
This issue arises from the use of irregularly shaped uncut diamonds and traditional hand-setting methods, which complicate the establishment of consistent quality and pricing.
Continuing that they pioneered manufacturing techniques using moulds to emboss our jewellery. That helped define parameters of shapes and sizes, which is very important for the online business,” adds Satyani. By the use of moulds to create more consistent Polki forms, Tyaani directly addressed the evaluation challenge, enabling clear parameters for online sales.
Since its founding as an online store in 2016, Tyaani has built eight brick-and-mortar stores in India.
Satyani further explains that as they started win appreciation, they realised that it was time to start spreading their wings offline as well. Hence, the expansion has been quite rapid and very well targeted.
The jewellery brand has an offline presence in Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Mumbai, Pune, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, and Bengaluru.
Jewellery without borders
Tyaani’s audience has no boundaries. It goes beyond demographics, geographies and generations,” explains Satyani.
Initially, it was just the brides of India, but he has seen international celebrities wearing old-world Polki jewellery with a darker polish to match with that old-world Victorian look. They are wearing their traditional polki jewellery on Western gowns. So there are no barriers left. Tyaani ships sizeable orders to the USA.
In a bid to aptly price their pieces, the brand has eliminated gold wastage in its designing process, making its jewellery leaner and less chunky. This approach not only made the jewellery more appealing to the younger audiences but also brought down unnecessary costs without compromising on craftsmanship.
“Because of our technique and art form, our pieces became really well-priced. I will not say cheap, but very well priced,” asserts Satyani.
The new campaign: Forces of Tyaani
The brand’s latest campaign, Forces of Tyaani, was envisioned by Karan Johar himself. “The intention was to solidify and consolidate what the brand truly embodies: authenticity, strength, transparency and individuality,” notes Satyani.
The campaign features actors such as Shefali Shah, Rasika Dugal, Shweta Tripathi, Jiya Shankar and Kalki Koechlin. “Each one of them is strong, represents a great deal of power, and they have an aura around them… they are women with great substance.”
Satyani, further says unlike typical celebrity endorsement campaigns, sales weren’t Tyaani’s primary goal.They only wanted to have women whom they looked up to represent their brand. Sales is always a by-product of marketing.”
A 360-degree marketing mix
The campaign spans digital and influencer collaborations, in-store storytelling and city-specific roadshows (exhibitions). They have also created a small coffee table book, which follows each celebrity and explains how they evolved their collection around their personality.
Satyani notes that Tyaani will soon be taking its entire collection on roadshows across the country. “So they are going to be travelling from city to city doing exhibitions to go and interact with new audiences and to ensure that they also get to enjoy the luxury design that we’ve created.
Competing with the local jeweller.
As per Shravan, regardless being a design-forward, global brand, Tyaani doesn’t view large retailers as its competition. Instead, it focuses on pricing parity. Their competition is their neighbouring mom-and-pop shop,”further explaining that “with Tyaani, they priced themselves so correctly that you will hardly see any difference between us and the local jeweller”.
With India’s online jewellery market rife with expectations of growth, it remains to be seen whether Tyaani, with its polki jewellery, will drive trends and influence patterns.
News Edit KV Raman
