Rubies, emeralds and uncut diamonds will imbue colour and dazzle to the historic epic Jodhaa Akbar visualised and directed by Ashutosh Gowarikar. If the film’s jewellery could speak, the magnificent array of gems would tell an eloquent tale of the historic union of the Rajput and Mughal dynasties in 16th century
It took a army of two hundred craftsman close to two years to create the ornaments with 400 kgs of gold and precious stones. The wedding set worn by Aishwarya weighed more than three and a half kilos and later Aishwarya even commented that wearing jewellery was the hardest part during the course of shooting and wondered how women in those days lived in such grand style. During the entire movie she wore close to 200 kilos of gold.
Tanishq, the leading jewellery brand made all the jewellery worn by Aishwarya Bachchan and Hrithik Roshan in the historical epic. The jewellery made were a blend of Rajasthani and Mughal design.
It was a mammoth task to recreate the jewellery of the Mughal era. The jewellers researched on old paintings and visited museums and even some private collections of erstwhile royal families.
The jewellers kept in mind the distinctive style of the Rajputs and the Mughals while making the ornaments. The major difference was Rajput jewellery was usually gold. While Mughals preferred the use of precious stones in their jewellery Rajputs had a liking for rustic gold.
Finding craftsman for such a task was very difficult and in one case the jewellers engaged three generations of craftsman where the oldest man had given up the art long ago. All the jewellery used in the movie has been specially hand crafted using methods which would have been used during the days of Akbar himself.
The toughest challenge for the craftsman came while designing the jewellery for Jodhaa Bai as very little pictorial reference was available of her. They had to refer to other painting of the same period to learn about the designs of that period.
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