Auditions announces winners

Design competition, AuDITIONS India 07-08, concluded its second edition of encouraging gold couture designs. And this year, Stuti Anand was the winner of AuDITIONS India 07-08 theme ‘Trendsetting Gold’, competing amongst 600 entrees across 17 states in India. This theme was chosen to challenge designers to start creating new aesthetics for Indian gold jewellery. Mr. Ajay Mitra, Managing Director, Indian Subcontinent, World Gold Council, said, “Since the inception of AuDITIONS, we were determined to showcase the flexibility of gold as Indians are accustomed to seeing gold in traditional designs. This new face of gold is modern, daring and bold”. The event is a combined effort of World Gold Council, AngloGold Ashanti, Tanishq and Rand Refinery. Twenty finalists were selected by a panel of judges from India’ s fashion, glamour and jewellery world - Raghavendra Rathore, Punam Sinha, Chhaya Momaya, Pheroza Godrej, Bijal Meswani, Anju Taraporewala, Malavika Sanghavi, Sangeeta Kathliwala, Ajay Mitra of World Gold Council and Mark Pool of AuDITIONS.

Winner Stuti Anand, is a jewellery design student from Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. Her winning design, a beaten gold neckpiece is inspired from the lotus flower. Stuti was honoured with a grand prize of 500 grams of gold. The second prize of 250 grams of gold was won by Sanya Shankar from Gurgaon, following her were Divya Batra from Agra and Nitya Ramanathan from Chennai tying in third place were each awarded 100 grams of gold. Consolation prizes of 20 grams of gold were handed out to the 16 finalists. Raghavendra Rathore, the ‘Concept Carrier’ for AuDITIONS said, “I have always believed that gold has the power to make a bold fashion statement. AuDITIONS has achieved this by showing us some of the most striking gold jewellery designed for the Indian woman”.

The designs were displayed in a fashion show format, with top models Tapur Chatterjee, Nina Manuel, Fleur Xavier & Gauhar Khan displaying the winning designs at a high tea. Of the 600 entrees, designs of the 20 finalists were manufactured by Tanishq. To judge the winner, the panel made its decision based on design impact, innovation in style, practicality of manufacturing and proximity to the theme. Design innovation from the couture collection of AuDITIONS will influence and inspire new design directions in gold jewellery fabricated by Tanishq.

AuDITIONS is rated as one of the most prominent gold couture competitions in the world. Besides India, it also appears at Brazil, China, South Africa and the Middle East.