Ask A Shop Owner: Mozaic

Shilpa Gupta, a marketing professional of 10 years has just launched Mozaic, a home and lifestyle store in Bandra. The two-storey store occupies a stately, white heritage bungalow on Turner Road, and stocks a mix of furniture, home linen, artifacts, cutlery, glassware, crockery and other home accessories. Gupta answers our questions:

How did you start?
I’ve been helping friends design their homes on an informal basis for a while now. I found that there isn’t a store that caters to all your interior needs. People invariably have to source pieces from different places, which can be quite harrowing. I conceptualised Mozaic for people to have enough to choose from within the same store and at very competitive prices.

Who picks and designs the pieces?
I have a core team of freelance designers: Tahira Das, Manasi Mehta, Sohel, Hazel Choksi and myself. Among the five of us, we manage to create themed collections, which include furniture, glassware, accessories, artifacts and home linen. I’m proud to say that all my furniture is designed by Indians and executed by local craftsmen. We also offer a customised design service for which a team of trained professionals was integral. Our services extend from doing up walls with paints and wall textures, to picking out the linen and custom-making pieces of furniture.

You offer a bridal gift registry service. What would you pick from it?
I love this pair of green lotus-shaped platters made with handblown glass. I have a penchant for details and this piece has the distinct ridges of lotus leaves. If not that, I’d get a vintage crystal table lamp with a silver base.

Where do people go wrong in designing their homes?
I wouldn’t say they go wrong, but they often settle for a compromise. The general tendency is that if you don’t get something to say, match your wall colour, or don’t get a piece of furniture in a certain size, you opt for what’s available and that decision becomes a glaring spot in the home.

How would you snazz up a bare room?
Starting with the walls. People tend to underplay wall dressings and wall textures, because they are erroneously perceived as expensive. At the most, people paint one wall a different colour but leave the remaining ones a stark white or cream and that doesn’t look appealing either. At Mozaic, we retail wallpaper and offer in-house wall treatments, which can perk up the dullest space. I’d even add quirky wall murals in the form of photo frames, stencil plates, and mirrors with frosted patterns.

Prices range from Rs250 for candles to Rs2 lakh for paintings.

LocationMosaic
77 Victory Villa
Opposite Axis Bank
Near the Lemon Grass restaurant signal
Turner Road
Bandra (West)

Phone2640 4897

HoursDaily, 11.30am to 8.30pm

Websitewww.mozaicthestore.com