Indian Furniture: A Rajasthani Adventure – Part 2

Iris loves the history and traditions behind the furniture we sell. It is a genuine love for India that inspired our business in the first place. We visit Rajasthan at least twice a year and have a real friendship with our suppliers.We hope our customers can appreciate this sets us apart from faceless companies with quality checkers and remote ordering that have no connection with the furniture they sell. Of course its possible to re-order stock from an office in Brighton, surf the net for new ideas, send representatives to do our buying, but for me, this misses the point. Keeping the connection with India current and fresh requires constant visits to the region and these journeys are always rewarding.

Just recently my artist friend in Udaipur, turned furniture designer and stylistic guru, showed me the new possibilities in acrylic inlay. Ideal for those
customers who have an issue with animal
products like bone of mother of pearl, the hard wearing acrylic is an ideal substitute for bone. It is very hard to tell the difference with the naked eye, the give away being it is more uniform in tone and color unlike the organic and variable shades of cream seen in the camel bone. It has the “advantage” that unlike our bone and mother of pearl inlay furniture it can be precisely cut by machine to follow elaborate designs created in computer software. So the bespoke angle takes on a whole new dimension, customers can create geometric designs of their own which can be faithfully reproduced with great accuracy onto furniture hand finished in Rajasthan. This is a great fusion of the traditional and the contemporary, and is something Iris can offer with immediate effect.

Of course acrylic inlay can be finished in absolutely any color just like all our inlay furniture. Not only that but the acrylic itself can be colored so a world of possibilities is opened up. If customers are interested in exploring bespoke inlay acrylic furniture and would like to create their own geometric designs please contact info@irisfurnishing.co.uk and we can send you a very simple software application that allows you to create your own tessellating and repeating geometric patterns. The software file would be sent to India and the acrylic cut by machine. As this method is much less labour intensive than our hand crafted inlay furniture there would also be large savings.

Alternatively customers can select any item of Indian furniture they like from our web site, bone or mother of pearl inlay, and we can recreate this with acrylic inlay for a durable and affordable