Meenu Subbiah, a luxury designer jewellery brand from Chennai, rooted in Chettinad heritage and celebrated for its rare in-house craftsmanship, has launched “Pettagam”, India’s first private museum on Chettinad jewellery, in Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu.

Every Chettiar (the business community in Tamil Nadu) home is said to have a “Pettagam”, a traditional iron chest or strongbox used to store the family’s valuables. Karaikudi, which is undeniably the cultural and architectural heart of the Chettinad region, will now have a “Pettagam” that has been born of a dream to immortalize the glittering legacy of Chettinad Jewellery. 

History tells us that the Nagarathars or Chettiars were fearless traders who crossed the oceans in pursuit of opportunity. And while doing so, they brought the world back home with them. Consequently, from weaving European flavours into their cuisine to incorporating Art Deco elegance into their jewellery, the Nagarathars blended global influences into their rich traditions. Rooted in this legacy, Pettagam unfolds as a space that celebrates the global journey of the Nagarathars and how echoes of the past come alive in the Chettinad aesthetic of today.

Built as a typical Chettinad edifice and spread across two floors, Pettagam takes the visitor through a multi-media journey showcasing the quintessence of Chettinad jewellery. The journey begins by tracing the origins of Chettinad jewellery, its regional motifs, and the craftsmanship that has evolved over five generations. This leads into a theatre space where a short film draws visitors into the world of diamonds, intricate designs, and the hum of skilled hands practising age-old techniques. Pettagam spotlights the dying art of traditional close setting, a meticulous technique used in less than 10% of traditional jewellery worldwide.

The second floor showcases three distinct genres of jewellery: authentic Chettinad ornaments, exquisite reimagining of regional artistry from various states of India, and sleek yet statement-making modern designs. On this floor of Pettagam, classic kandacharams, poocharams, and mullaicharams from Chettinad are juxtaposed with incredible adaptations of the rich Kasumala of Kerala, the attractive Arakku temple jewellery of the Chola and Pandya kings, the intricate Jali wrist adornments from the Mughal era and the opulent Kundan necklaces from the royal courts of Rajasthan. And then there is jewellery that makes seemingly impossible demands on the technology used to create it—in this section of the museum, modernity takes over. 

Speaking on the occasion, Meenu Subbiah, Founder and Designer, said, “I’ve been studying traditional Chettinad jewellery for the last 20 years—talking to elders in the community, looking for references in literature, in music, sifting through hundreds of sepia-toned photographs of impeccably dressed Aachis (Chettiar women) adorning sparkling diamonds. And the idea of Pettagam was born along the way; I felt the strong desire and need to archive Chettinad’s rich and layered jewellery heritage. Every region in our country has beautiful ancestral legacy in jewellery. These legacies deserve to be protected, preserved. Pettagam is a humble effort in that direction as well. And finally, Pettagam also holds a mirror to the future of jewellery wherein technology offers limitless designing possibilities. After 3 decades of pursuing authenticity in our design journey, the launch of Pettagam in Chettinad feels like a true homecoming.”