High Jewelry Capitals - Bombay

September 2008


Back to Bombay

Western firms who served the maharajas are now eyeing the luxury market in Mumbai

Moscow may have the world’s highest concentration of billionaires, but it’s Mumbai, India’s undisputed capital of commerce, that claims 25,000 millionaires, reportedly one of the fastest growing affluent populations in the world. Bombay, as it is commonly known, is a city of mind-boggling extremes. About half of the city’s 13 million people live in Dharavi, a slum to end all slums, while pockets of wealth cling to its outskirts, in enclaves like Kemp’s Corner, Malabar Hill and Bandra. European luxury providers, although slow to penetrate the Indian market due to excessive import duties, have been drawn to a few areas in south Mumbai, mostly concentrated around the city’s poshest hotels, the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower and the Oberoi in nearby Nariman Point, the city’s commercial and banking hub.

High Jewelry Capitals - Bombay Photo provided courtesy of Maharashtra Tourism

One of Mumbai’s best selections of contemporary diamond jewelry can be found at the DiA boutique in the former. But this being India, there’s no shortage of local jewelers to satisfy the insatiable demand. One of the city’s best designers is born-and-bred Mumbaikar Viren Bhagat. Unlike most Indian jewelers, whose stock in trade is 22-karat gold, Bhagat works almost exclusively in platinum, a sign that India’s affluent consumers are already looking to the next phase of their country’s 5,000-year-old jewelry tradition.

High Jewelry Capitals - Bombay

This is India The Gateway of India in Mumbai’s Colaba district is across the street from the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower. These pearl and diamond earrings by Bhagat sold at Christie’s Hong Hong in 2007 for 1,207,500 Hong Kong dollars, or $155,164.