With its unique creations and focus on targeting the fashion-conscious set, Ame De Verre is on its way to becoming India's leading home art boutique.Imagine your home adorned with the finest stained-glass decorative items—from lampshades to window and door panels—or abstract artworks that not only add value to your living area but also do it in style.
With Ame De Verre - the soul of glass - this is possible. Ame De Verre is an inspired expression by the artist within, an intensely emotional painting on the canvas of glass. The core of the Ame De Verre's portfolio consists of Meenakshi Salve's creations and collections. Her creations capture her emotions, spirit, joys and sorrows during the past decade of her life.
The two common themes that run through her creations and collections are that they are an intense expression of complex colours and forms, and almost all of them can add significant value rather than merely making cosmetic changes to your home.
Working in her small studio at home, Meenakshi's first works were displayed at the Maurya Hotel and the Taj Palace Hotel at the India Habitat Centre in Delhi. Fulfilling a dream of harnessing the Indian talent for crafts by training local workers in non-traditional work, she recruited and trained a posse of skilled craftsmen, who now assist her in the intricacies of creating these works of art.
With increasing production and a desire to spread her wings, Meenakshi launched brand Ame De Verre in a glitzy function at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 2007. Although it was not an exhibition for sale, the visitors were most impressed by her creations. Adding to her repertoire of creations, Meenakshi started designing forms that would combine her art with utility and add value through items of use, the first few products being candle shades and food warmers.
But Meenakshi was always keen to establish an exquisite boutique and a visit to the Paris Fair in February 2008 convinced Meenakshi that Ame De Verre should be larger than her creations-it should stand for beautiful artefacts that are intense and complex in their structure and eloquent in their statement. At the Paris Fair, Ame De Verre's relationship with Baldi began - a leader in the field of home art.
Adding to their repertoire of creations, Ame De Verre started designing forms that would combine art with utility and add value through items of use.
Baldi's creations were displayed at the Salon Ame De Verre in Vasant Kunj in New Delhi. The Emporio line of malls- an exclusive space for luxury brands -caters to the upper-middle-class Indian consumers, who have the resources and appetite for high-value luxury products. Ame De Verre plans to open a boutique at the first floor of
Emporio Mall.
On display would also be art pieces sourced from elsewhere and as an aside, Ame De Verre would also be stocking the famous Panache Chocolate-the first choice for all-from the rich and famous (like L.N. Mittal, who gifted them to his invitees at the time of his daughter's famous wedding at the Versailles Palace) to the not-so-very-rich and not-necessarily-famous.
The time is just right for Ame De Verre to entrench itself as a symbol of high class art products. It is making a beginning with a small Baldi Corner, including products of the Baldi line, products sourced from other class producers and Ame De Verre creations. With time it hopes to grow with other artwork that syncs with its line of products, all of which would enrich an Indian home like never before.
More Emporio malls are being planned and, depending upon its timing and demand conditions, Salon Ame De Verre could make a presence in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Sooner than later, Salon Ame De Verre could just be India's next leading boutique.
Originally published in Jet Wings - October 2009
