TAHITIAN PEARL TROPHY 2005-06 INDIAN SUBCONTINENT
The Tahitian Pearl Trophy is not only an occasion for jewelry designers to challenge themselves but it also provides a channel to reach international markets such as New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Basel, Vicenza and Las Vegas, just to name few. Those are some of the prestige markets where Perles de Tahiti, Govt. of Tahiti will exhibit the international winners of the 4th Tahitian Pearl Trophy.
Tahitian Pearl Trophy is the only international competition with Tahiti Cultured Pearls. This years' Indian Subcontinental trophy was launched in the hands of Mr. Bakul Mehta, Chairman of GJEPC and Mr. Faruukh Hasan, Mgr. of Pakistan International Airlines. It was later launched with a presentation in Pakistan (Lahore and Karachi) and was later introduced to Sri Lanka too. The competition is in its 4th edition worldwide.
This year the record breaking number of participants (250+) and number of Designs (500+) took participation in the contest with an entry from Pakistan as well. In India the entries were received from Surat, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Nashik, Panch Pakadi, Gandhinagar, Bhopal, Tamil Naidu, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Hyderabad, Bhilwana, Noida, Punjab, Pune, Jalgaon, Moga, Udaipur, Bangalore etc...
The preliminary judging took place in Mumbai on 2nd July’05. 57 designs were short listed with 5 min in each category (10). The winners include the young designers of reputed jewellers and exporting companies like Tanishq, Ganjam & Nagappa, Oyzterbery, TBZ - The original (Zaveri Bazar), Shrenuj & Co. The renowned designers like Sreeniwas Reddy (Bangalore), Gitika Singh (Bangalore), Laksh Pahuja (Mumbai), Rosily Paul (Delhi), Debasish Karmakar (Mumbai), Sangeeta Diwan (Delhi), Pallavi Dudeja (Bangalore), and Neil Foley (Bangalore) have once again made their presence confirmed in the competition.
The judges were Mrs. Renu Kapoor of Indian Institute of Jewellery, Saurabh Zaveri of Star Jewels, Manan Zaveri of K.G. Pearls, Mithu Basu of The Leela Hotel, Preeti Khurani of GJEC Institute, Suraj Popley of Popley Gold Plaza.
As usual Mumbai played a dominant role in the competition and was much ahead of cities like New Delhi, Bangalore, Jaipur Hyderabad, Ghaziabad, West Bengal and Noida in bagging place for final round.
The final judging took place at Indian Institute of Jewellery (hospitality sponsor) and final judges were 1) Mr. Vijay Jatia, Chairman, Modern Mills & IIJ 2) Mrs. Anu Ranjan, Dir, Indian Television Academy and Publisher of GR8! magazine 3) Mrs. Maryada Sharma, Ex. Signity Head, India 4) Mr. Rajesh Jhaveri of Ocean Pearls 5) Dr. Priya Gokhale 6) Mr. Sajlendu Chatterji, Dir, Jewel Trends 7) Ms. Sandra Merchant, Editor, Solitaire International.
India has already claimed its 2 prizes in the very first year of its participation in 2001-02. Pooja Mansharamani’s design Brooch fabricated by none other then Yogesh Jasnani at Trendsmith won the winner title in the international round in New York (US) and Suman Pandit’s design Bracelet fabricated by Noor Sons (Mumbai) got 2nd Runner up position.
