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No Indian city embodies the spirit of contemporary craftsmanship quite like Jaipur. The iconic Pink City is helming a thrilling creative renaissance, shedding tired associations with tourist souvenirs and obsolescent designs. Artisanship is sacrosanct, good design is revered, and endangered craft forms are preserved and reinterpreted in truly novel ways that resonate with the modern aesthete. Gradually through the 21st century, Jaipur has evolved into a nucleus of modern creativity, drawing talent from around the globe. In this city, time seems to stand still while moving at an electric pace, and its stunning stores and ateliers capture this very essence. Here’s AD’s ultimate guide to the prettiest stores, boutiques, and ateliers in Jaipur.
Khanoom
Khanoom was founded in 2021 by Priyamvada Golcha and Simon Marks, and quickly went on to become one of the country’s most charming pottery studios. Their aesthetic hallmarks are hand-painted botanical illustrations inspired by a range of De Materia Medica from the 6th to the 16th centuries, Kufic calligraphy, Indian miniature painting, and curiosities found along the many Silk Routes that have existed.
After having been primarily an e-commerce venture with a physical presence in select boutiques like Mumbai’s Le Mill, Khanoom opened its first showroom in Jaipur in October 2023. This quaint, almost bucolic space is an extension of Khanoom’s studio. “When somebody visits us, they can see how the pieces are made from scratch—from clay processing to the final firing—every step of the production can be witnessed,” says Golcha. Marks, who has a background in theatre, set, costume, and tactile design, brought the studio space to life in Golcha's family compound, which is a 300-year-old complex. “There was a lot of restoration work in traditional lime plaster, so we used our craftsmen and our old lime plastering techniques to build the studio,” she adds.
Makaan
Tahir Sultan, the Jaipur-based designer, brought his concept store, Makaan, to life on the heels of Covid. Makaan began as a novelty store, as a shopfront for fashion towels, shawls, and beautiful antiques. Then it metamorphosed into an interior concept store with rare curiosities such as tribal masks, Naga stools, and 200-year-old urns originally used on trade routes. Today, it assumes a third avatar, with a chapel room for carpets and an ikat room for cushions and lamps, amongst other equally charming treasures. In addition to staying true to its predecessors, it also serves as an art gallery, a fashion boutique, and an antique house, and enjoys a clientele of discerning designers and architects around the world.
The store is as whimsical as the objects that inhabit it. Old rusted sewage pipes—found and saved several years ago—masquerade as art installations beside artisanal clay pots of Sultan’s own design. Cardboard boxes and bamboo ladders display artwork and vases. Old boxes of incense find new life as pedestals. “People come to Makaan for the experience,” reflects Sultan, who refreshed the aesthetic lexicon last year to reveal its most soigné identity yet: think triple-height ceilings, black stone bathrooms, and grey and white hand-trowelled walls.
Text by Vaishnavi Nayel Talwadekar. Edited by Nuriyah Johar.
Raniwala 1881
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Legacy jewellery brand Raniwala 1881’s glittering showroom in Jaipur assumes the form of a modern haveli. Hues of teal, peach, chartreuse, and cobalt are layered across different rooms, complemented by bold gold motifs that serve as a striking extension of the brand’s signature offerings. A mezzanine floor is devoted entirely to bridal jewellery, while other sections showcase both contemporary designs and heritage jadau pieces (the brand’s signature offerings). Opulence is embraced unabashedly here, as an homage to Raniwala 1881’s rich history.
Ecru
Home to favoured design haunts, Jaipur’s C Scheme is where it’s at. In 2021, the area welcomed lifestyle brand Ecru into its stylish fold with a flagship store straight out of a confectioner’s dream—if the confectioner was Wes Anderson, but Rajasthani. “We decided to open a boutique because, although we’d always distributed in India, we wanted to share the experience of the Ecru universe,” says Nur Kaoukji, creative director of the brand, and one of its three partners (the other two being her childhood friends, Noor Al Sabah and Hussah Al Tamimi). The charming pastel-hued space showcases products from Ecru’s signature collections, as well as ones made exclusively for the new store. “I want people to enter and feel like well-received guests,” says Kaoukji, adding, “And like they’d want to stay a while.”
Text by Divya Mishra. Edited by Nuriyah Johar.
Jaipur Rugs
The Narain Niwas Palace hotel in Jaipur is home to the newest outlet of Jaipur Rugs—a veritable wonderland of carpets located in a heritage structure on the palace grounds, which was built in 1928 as an entrance to the royal courtyard and gardens. However, nothing inside resembles the all-too-familiar template of carpet stores. Instead of carpets lined in a legion of columns, the hand-knotted offerings here are presented with clever exuberance. Carpet-clad ceilings; fluted carpet-clad walls; carpet-framed mirrors; carpets as cushion covers, as borders on curtains, chandeliers, and installation art—it’s the kind of grandeur that is shorn of affectation but is filled with joy.
“We wanted to conceptualise interiors that would redefine the typical carpet store to create a layered and nuanced experiential space,” says AD100 architect Vaishali Kamdar. The 1,700-square-foot space is a lavish spectacle laid out in twin galleries. The gallery on the left, envisioned as a salon, transitions into a day room awash with sunlight streaming in from extravagant arched windows. In contrast, the gallery on the right bears the sumptuousness of a museum thanks to an array of dramatic carpet installations. While the original gravitas of the heritage building—red stonework, 13-foot-high ceilings, sandstone columns, elegantly proportioned cornices—has been retained, the unexpected touches added by Kamdar are bold statements not easily forgotten: black Georgian doors, white epoxy floors, and a striking red bathtub at the very centre.
Text by Rajashree Balaram. Edited by Nuriyah Johar.
The Palace Atelier
What happens when a Gen-Z princess launches a contemporary craft endeavour? Princess Gauravi Kumari’s Palace Atelier is bursting with colour; bold shades of pink, green, yellow, and blue, striped ceilings, and maximalist prints transform the interior into a spirited world of creativity. The concept store, housed in Jaipur’s City Palace, features an exciting curation that ranges from statement Bhavya Ramesh sunglasses to decorative matchboxes, and more. The very ethos of Jaipur—across art, fashion, and history—is brought to life in a vibrant, avant-garde manner by the young princess and her co-collaborator, French designer Claire Deroo.
Gauravi says, “The Palace Atelier carries forward the modernising spirit of Jaipur with a new vision that will see it become not only a museum store but also a concept store. It’s a world where Jaipur’s timeless crafts meet India’s modernity. It’s a labour of love, a world of treasures big and small, lovingly made, found, and restored.”
The PDKF Store
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Another concept store under the Jaipur royal family’s umbrella, the PDKF (Princess Diya Kumari Foundation) Store, is a winsome boutique housed within The City Palace where traditional Rajasthani craft forms coalesce with modern silhouettes. The foundation is dedicated to empowering women and girls in rural Rajasthan, and operates five centres across the state that offer opportunities through education and guidance. At the heart of the foundation’s mission is providing women artisans with a pathway to financial independence. Through the PDKF Store, the artisans bring their exquisite work—ranging from Gota Patti embroidery and fine needlework to block printing—to a largely international consumer base. Intrinsically Indian yet refreshingly global in their appeal, the PDKF Store’s offerings include baseball caps, wrap skirts, coasters, and patchwork quilts, as chic manifestations of contemporary craftsmanship, designed by Princess Gauravi Kumari and French designer Claire Deroo.
IDLI By Thierry Journo
Another C Scheme gem—the fashion and homeware store designed by founder Thierry Journo is an homage to colour and eclectic French sensibilities—both of which are Journo's signature trademarks. As much as displaying his designs, the store showcases his handiwork, honed during stints as a copyist at the Louvre, in collaborations with Thierry Mugler and André Putman, and as an illustrator for John Galliano. Journo brings together his narrative skills and illustrator's hand to create a dreamlike space where doorways are framed by gaily striped, trompe l’oeil canopies; walls feature dancing tropical palms and grasses; and quaint, bud-shaped paper lanterns in a rainbow of colours hang from the ceiling. The entire effect is of a fantastical, and somehow, quintessentially French fairytale—playful, stylish, and brimming with possibility.
Within the store, products are broadly segregated by room. The first room is focused on garments; the second, on accessories; and the third and fourth, on furniture, furnishings, and porcelain. What is common to all rooms is their sense of openness and breathability—concepts far removed from the modern idea of retail, which is to pack every square foot with as much merchandise as possible. Journo, on the other hand, seems to have an instinctive understanding of his customers, his designs, and his platform. “There is much more opportunity for my customers to see everything now."
Text by Divya Mishra. Edited by Nuriyah Johar.
Tokree Jaipur
Awash in warm whites, Tokree Jaipur’s Narain Niwas outpost is a compelling extension of founder Sanyukta Singh’s creative sensibilities. The store is dotted with antiques and heirlooms, some with personal significance to Singh and others collected over the years from scrap dealers and kabadiwalas across the country. She says, “I was both the contractor and space designer, and I used what I could scrounge from my parents. The central takhtah was our toddler bed when we were kids; my parents had it made. The table was picked from export rejects from Ramgarh (Shekhawati) many years ago for our army home.” She goes on to say, “I’ve collected the antique prints from scrap dealers in and around Shekhawati. Many havelis are brought down there, unfortunately, as families have moved away and expanded. These have little to no value for the kabadiwalas.”
The store’s overarching aesthetic is clean, minimal, and timeless, much like the brand’s sartorial offerings. Singh says, “They transcend age—daughters, mums, grandmums; I’d like to think our Indian wear can be worn by all ages, with wardrobes to be shared.”
Gem Palace
In the space where the legendary Munnu Kasliwal once enthralled rock stars and royals alike with his crafted jewellery, his son Siddharth carries on the legacy. The private studio was given an update in 2018 by Marie-Anne Oudejans.
The space is on the second floor of the Gem Palace, and Siddharth knows he has big shoes to fill. A fitting tribute, then, was to redesign his father’s private atelier, for which he went straight to his old friend Marie-Anne Oudejans. “I’ll do it for Munnu,” she promised. So walls were broken, windows made, lotuses painted, and a ceiling created to resemble, in trademark Oudejans style, a tent. Of course, there’s a real tent too (how could there not be?): in a lovely little terrace, where, once upon a time, father and son would talk jewellery for hours on end. Munnu’s designs have reached the far corners of the world, and guests from those very corners come to Jaipur every year—on pilgrimage to a tiny atelier, to see the precious creations in their natural habitat. A habitat of pink, coupled with the colour of the desert sand—an ode to the Pink City. And the man who gave it a new sheen.
Text by Tora Agarwala. Edited by Nuriyah Johar.
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