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Steeling beauty
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The recently opened Artd'inox brand store unveils steel in a sassy, hip avatar
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CHIC STYLES Divided into different categories like home décor, dining range, bar, bath and office accessories, each piece is a celebration
Stainless steel brings these immediate images of magnets (you know the steel is pure if the magnet does not stick) and the old clothes your mother astutely exchanged for that one-litre vessel she had been eyeing for a while when the vendor turned up at the doorstep.
The other memory would be of the umpteen house warming ceremonies or marriages where you would crawl forth with intricately carved dishes as gifts and get similar curly dishes as return gifts that you would look for the first opportunity to pass on to the next bakra.
Lifestyle product
"Unlike the West where steel is considered super chic, in India steel is perceived as something for daily use, rather downmarket," says Sugato Bose, business head of Artd'inox, the lifestyle product division of Jindal Stainless. "In the West, steel has this totally futuristic connotation. All offices and homes are done in steel to up the desirability quotient."
"It is the same steel, the look is different," Sugato comments. Different and how! The brand store at Safina Plaza reveals some mind-altering stuff. Divided into different categories like home décor, dining range, bar, bath and office accessories, each piece is a celebration of Artd'inox — the art of stainless steel. Inox in Italian means stainless steel, which does not have much to do with movies but then that is another story all together!
The home décor range has some darling photo frames — in these days of digital photography, it gives you enough reason to invest in hard copy. The vases are personification of the simple, subtle and dazzlingly stylish. And the candle stands teamed with ceramic with a Swiss-cheese-holes design is beyond lovely. There are experiments in glass and steel where you could indulge your creativity by using it as a vase, a lamp or just as objet d'art.
The dining range has, believe it or faint, a square dining set! It is to die for. The plates with their gently rounded edges, quietly curling upwards smoothly scales the pinnacle of style. There are square bowls that beg you to say goodbye to the happy homey katoris of yore. And did you say salt and pepper shakers? The sparkling little wheels will add a whole lot of chutzpah to your table.
The beverage accessories have mugs, and for the formally funky there are lovely ceramic mugs with steel handles and saucers shaped like clovers that look lovely and are excellent conversation starters. And even if you are not the tea service kind, you could decide to make a start after a look at the conical tea set that is all angular lines and steeples. And if you like your tea service plump, warm and cosy, there is a curvy rounded option in white ceramic with supremely sturdy handles.
Elegant motifs
There are cups with a simple, elegant spiral motif that stay on the right side of psychedelic and a tribal motif for that all-important return to roots.
The bar accessories with the ice bucket, the wine bottle holder and the bar set complete with tongs, corkscrew and opener will make drinkers of us all. For those who believe the bathroom is a room too, is a range of soap dispensers, toothbrush holders, soap dishes and the like. The office accessories scream corporate gifting. The prices are reasonable, starting at Rs. 350.
Artd'inox is at # 20, (next to the Titan showroom), Ground Floor, Safina Plaza.
MINI ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER
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