Kelly Wearstler new Mumbai collection "By Fire" celebrates craftsmanship

When Æquo invited Kelly Wearstler in 2024 to shape a collection in conversation with its partner artisans in India, it came with an immediate sense of rightness. (Photo: Werstler Facebook)

By Fire is a study in transformation. The Lahar and Tarang collections are created in collaboration between Kelly Werstler and Mumbai-based collectible design gallery æquō. It explore how material, process, and tradition evolve through heat, time, and the human hand. Her influence spans architecture, interiors and product design, and while she has collaborated widely across creative fields, India had never entered her practice until now.

Since its founding in 2022 in Mumbai, the gallery has committed itself to creating bridges between India’s master craftspeople and visionary designers from around the world, cultivating dialogues that allow longstanding techniques to inform contemporary creation without erasing their lineage.

The resulting collections, Laharand Tarang, are the fruit of this unique meeting between her distinct creative language and the mastery of Indian artisans. One collection features a series of furniture pieces and table objects built around a massive cast bronze grid. Each bronze structure is carefully inlaid with hundreds of hand-shaped enamel pieces, creating a contrast of color and texture unique to every work, with subtle variations and singular nuances.

This fusion of techniques, still practised on both sides of

the bay, brings together bronze and colour in a way that recalls the refinement of jewellery, reinterpreted here for the interior. The other takes shape in sculpted teak. Here, wood is carved by hand into fluid forms, burnt to deepen its texture, and accented with delicate bronze elements that trace its curves.

Presented together, these collectionsoffer a landscape where fire meets wood and metal, and where structure and fluidity coexist. They reflect the meeting of two creative geographies of a designer entering new territory, and of artisans whose mastery continues to shape the identity of the collaboration, united by a shared reverence for tradition and its evolution.

"By Fire is a study in transformation. Created in collaboration with Mumbai-based collectible design gallery æquō, the Lahar and Tarang collections explore how material, process, and tradition evolve through heat, time, and the human hand. Developed with master artisans across Mumbai and Alibag, the collection allows material intelligence to lead - honoring centuries-old techniques while extending them into a contemporary design language," Kelly Wearstler, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kelly Wearstler.