The words Olkaan Nishtah come from the Marwari Rajasthani language of present-day north-west India. When translated into English, Olkaan Nishtah means, loyalty, elegance, devotion, dedication, faith, and adherence as a connoisseur.
What does this mean and why is it important to us and to others?
The founders of Olkaan Nishtah come from families that have been dedicated to the highest quality of material culture for generations. We, and our forebearers before us, have been trained from childhood in the in-depth knowledge of beauty in design, etiquette and diplomacy, history and the fine arts, as well as the technical processes of the world’s finest artisanal products. Our families have long married intellectualism with patronage and trade. This kind of syncretic knowledge is characteristic of the aristocrat’s way of life, which, while intellectual, is not academic but unites the understanding of people, human abilities and relationships, physical possibilities, wonder and beauty in the creation of extraordinary objects. We believe aristocratic connoisseurship is something anyone with the appetite to learn can acquire. Many people today believe a connoisseur is someone with vast knowledge on a particular subject, but this is only partially correct. The contemporary definition of connoisseur comes from 17th-century France, but connoisseurship begins with the court cultures that developed in exchanges between India, Persia and Greece between the 4th and 1st centuries BC. This connoisseurship integrated all aspects of human knowledge; it was not specialized but it was precise. The royals of India, China and Japan, Persia and Arabia, Greece and Rome put connoisseurship at the heart of their elite cultures and made it a grounds for their right to rule through the 15th century. At this point, European intelligentsia and the ruling classes rediscovered a cosmopolitan knowing, transforming European culture from present-day Sicily and Andalusia to Venice. The basic principles of connoisseurship are: to learn through experience the different intellectual underpinnings of luxury, cosmopolitan styles, and the tools and technical processes that made beautiful rarities possible. Documentation and sustainability have always been core principles of connoisseurship and elite patronage. Refined sensibilities and trained instincts enable an individual to appraise authenticity and quality.
Over the last generations, a decline has occurred in the quality of most of today’s products. The vast majority of manufacturing and distribution systems in place focus on mass produced items that are aggressively marketed as being premium (mid-level) or luxury (high-level), but these are misnomers for the actual quality on offer. What manufacturers label premium products are mostly low quality, and what are labelled luxury are often just premium. Producers depend on ill-educated buyers to push true luxury out of the market and successfully sell mediocre goods. The misnomers do not just stop at the overall labelling and branding of products but with the names of the products themselves. Items labelled as pashmina, for example, are sold widely across the world but are rarely genuine (genuine pashmina is a rare wool from the underbelly of the Changthangi Himalyan goat whose fibers range from 12 to 15 microns). Most pashmina is produced from machine-made synthetic fabrics, from handmade or machine-made wools and cottons, or from a mix of natural and synthetic materials. The word “Pashmina” has been legally coopted by companies and individuals to associate rarity and high quality with textiles that are not pashmina. Shoppers are easily fooled.
We do not accept this system of branding and reject the damage it has done to the true luxury arts. We believe in the celebration and acquisition of products and services that are of fine quality, made by hand, produced with sustainable raw materials and crafted by skilled, trained artisans. We also believe that we need to bring connoisseurship back to the marketplace if we are to restore high quality, hand crafted luxury goods to the market. Most of the public has lost the ability to decipher what is rare and of intrinsic worth, and we want to help them see, learn and become knowing patrons themselves.
To breakdown the method and meaning of Olkaan Nishtah:
1. Faith: we want to inspire our adherents’ faith in how the Olkaan Nishtah system can change how we live and shop around the world
2. Loyalty: we want to earn our clients’ allegiance by sharing openly, through teaching, what we know about every stage of the process of making
3. Elegance: we want our clients to see the beauty of objects made from loyal relationships and deep knowledge; elegance is in the making as well as in the appearance of the final object
4. Devotion: we want our clients to see and share in our devotion to beauty and high quality
5. Adherence: we consider our system to be ethical, and we commit to maintaining it no matter what the future may bring: we do not believe in expanding our wealth and footprint in the world but in making us all better people through our things, through how we acquire them, how we use them, how we own and treasure them.
And so we begin, for our readers, with our personal story of how Olkaan Nishtah became an entity.
For 13 generations, the practice of connoisseurship has been passed down. A system of feodum talliatum or feel-tail was established within the family such that, in each generation, from among those who were trained in connoisseurship, the brighest, most talented and passionate were chosen as the next connoisseur. Training started at an early age and multiple disciplines were taught simultaneously. Disciplines included but were not limited to the raw materials, processes, tools and techniques and aesthetic judgment of fine and decorative arts. Expertise extended from knowledge of root, bark, floral, and spice extracts, to music, alcohol, textiles, gemmology, paper, handwriting, poetry, philosophy, religions, diplomacy, etiquette, aesthetics and different cultural systems from around the world. We believed the family titles should be earned, and we are a meritocracy. We believe talent can be found anywhere. At Olkaan Nishtah, Shanane Davis is the present Connoisseur designated by her family, and she has named and continues to trainer, her successor, Adhiraj Singh Devra. We found each other 12 years ago and not by our usual family system. (There, we are not dogmatic in our Adherence!) Davis recognized her successor in his tremendous talents and keen eye. She named him her successor in 2019, and Olkaan Nishtah was founded in January of 2020.
In our weekly blogs, Olkaan Nishtah will be posting articles we have written to educate our readers and give them deep insights into step-by-step processes that follow traditional connoisseurship practices and to empower them to become discerning themselves about rarity, quality, aesthetics, and acquisition. Posts will offer histories, craft processes and comparisons to explain in detail the complexity of the world’s rarities and traditional authentic luxuries. Along with this education, we will provide links to products and services that our readers can follow to acquire exceptional objects of true worth. We will sponsor no products based on market gimmicks. Only the finest items and services will be posted here with detailed explanations about why they are the best the world has to offer. Our future lies in your learning.
We look forward to your thoughts, questions, and insight
olkaannishtah@gmail.com
