Blue lotus and parrots... Kochi designers on how they created the Kerala-themed look for actor Keerthy Suresh’s wedding

Kerala-based mother-daughter duo, Asha Sebastian Mattathil and Tiya Neil Karikkassery, designs stunning bridal jewellery for celebrities, blending tradition with contemporary elegance.

When actor Keerthy Suresh was planning her wedding and brainstorming the ‘looks’ and trousseau with her stylists, Kochi-based bridal wear designer Tiya Neil Karikkassery’s name popped up. And as the team was ideating one of the outfits, jewellery came up for discussion. And if Tiya was designing the garment, who else but her mother, Asha Sebastian Mattathil, to make the gold jewellery? 

To the uninitiated, Asha is probably one of Kerala’s first independent jewellery designers. The mother-daughter duo’s work for a look for the actor’s Goa wedding has come in for a lot of praise.

This is not the first time either of them is designing for a celebrity. Asha has designed for Mammootty’s daughter’s marriage as also for Rajinikanth’s eldest daughter and for one of the functions related to racing car driver Narain Karthikeyan’s wedding functions.  

A cheerful Asha dressed in a cream and green ombre kurta and trousers, flaunts her matching green heels as she poses for the photographs, joking that the footwear should show. Her enthusiasm belies the 30-odd years she has been designing jewellery.  

We are at MOD Signature Jewellery, her designer jewellery store in Panampilly Nagar. The first floor houses Tiya’s bridal design studio, T&M Signature. The glass doors are high security, the kind that needs cards to be swiped for the door to open. Asha leads me into an inner chamber, a bridal lounge, which has all manner of neckpieces, dominated by a wingback chair. One corner is an elevated glass walled nook, a trial room of sorts for brides. 

A shop assistant brings a jewellery display mannequin on which sits the necklace Keerthy wore with the Kerala-inspired ensemble that Tiya designed. She veered clear of typical Kerala motifs such as Kathakali. Instead picked elements such as a parrot, fish, plantains, coconut palms, a tharavadu (homestead), kalaripayattu, the snake boat, caparisoned elephants, and chenda (a percussion instrument). 

“We kept to the white and gold, but interpreted it differently,” Tiya says. There is a sprinkling of motifs on the ensemble pavada-davani, commonly known as the half sari or two-piece sari. The skirt is layered, with scalloped gold edges. The davani is the colour of gold, which accentuated the Kerala theme. Asha credits Tiya for the suggestions for the jewellery.