THE STORY

I'll start with the name, because the name is the whole story.

Ilika is a Sanskrit word. It means the Earth. The ground beneath your feet when you were a kid and still went outdoors without shoes. The life force. ILIKARTH means belonging to that Earth. Grounded.

I didn't pick that word and then figure out what to do with it. It was the other way around. I was already making things from stones and beads and such, honestly, I still cringe at the things I made then, sometimes wire wrapping, sometimes just reading about stones and crystals and their uses. All of it was mesmerising, so out of the world we live in, I used to work around it for hours until it became something you could wear and that’s when I finally needed a Name.

(it wasn’t easy, it took me 8 months, one more month and I feel like I could have gotten it a birth certificate)

My name is Anshika. I'm 26. I live in Ahmedabad now, but I've lived in enough cities that home became less of a place and more of a feeling. I am a person who is constantly searching for an escape, so Winx Club was my favourite cartoon, High Fantasy is a genre I live inside, and the magic stone in Dragon Tales? I wanted that so Bad (I have it now, my inner child is very happy). I'm also a kathak dancer. A painter. A fashion designer (according to my degree, the degree and I have a complicated relationship). I have always wanted to live away from “here” and in all my identities, I think I have succeeded

ILIKARTH started about two years ago. Not with a business plan. But with a Friends’ offer to put up a stall in her college mental health week event. That day gave me the confidence I needed to start, and of course, my mother.

I should tell you about the stones, because they matter a lot to me. I don't pick them off a trending list. I don't source my information from Pinterest (if I did, I feel at this point I would just have amethyst and rose quartz). I go through the written knowledge in books like The Book of Stones by Robert Simmons and the various volumes of The Crystal Dictionary. I want to understand what I'm putting into your hands before it ever gets there.

People ask me sometimes what ILIKARTH is. I say it's a jewellery brand because that's the simplest answer and the truest one right now. But it's not the complete one.

What I'm really building is a world. Jewellery is the first door into it. There will soon be others: clothing, art, things I'm still figuring out (I promise you there is a list in the dark green diary which I carry around).

 The thread that runs through all of it is this: I want to take ordinary things and add a quiet layer of whimsy and Joy. The way that a favourite coffee mug makes a regular morning feel like it's holding a small secret just for you (although, you and me, we both should really stop drinking coffee just because the mug is cute).

That's the whole purpose. Whimsy in the everyday. Joy in the ordinary.

The knowledge of our collective impending doom shouldn’t come in the way of frolicking and fun.

Anyway,

You're here now. Look around. Stay as long as you want.

If something catches your eye, it probably meant to.