There is a reason the most unsettling objects are often the ones meant to protect us. In parts of India, homes and shops display nazar battus: faces with bulging eyes, protruding tongues, and intimidating expressions meant to deflect the evil eye. They are rarely conventionally pretty, their exaggerated features often veering into the uncanny. Yet their purpose is deeply caring. They stand guard.

That contradiction sits at the heart of STARE, the first collaboration between jewellery designer Bhavya Ramesh and fashion label NorBlack NorWhite, founded by artists Amrit Kumar and Mriga Kapadiya. Conceived as a collection of jewellery and accessories that protects the unwanted gaze rather than invites it, STARE is a reflection on life lived under scrutiny, both online and off.

“We have long been champions of protecting your spirit. This felt like a very natural extension of this sentiment,” says Mriga. “Every single woman has experienced the universal feeling of an unwanted gaze. This has amplified with our voyeuristic, super public culture where we don’t know how deep that unwanted gaze can go.”

The brand has, over the years, built a visual language rooted in Indian textiles, crafts and everyday cultural practices, the idea of protection felt instinctive. Their work has consistently drawn from local symbols, textiles, and traditions, translating them into contemporary clothing and storytelling.

Bhavya Ramesh’s world is not far removed. The Bengaluru-born, Mumbai-based designer has become known for jewellery that feels more talismanic. Her pieces, often sculptural and symbol-laden, draw from mythology, memory and mysticism. Adornment, in her universe, is rarely decoration for decoration’s sake.

“My work has always existed in the space of symbolism first, and adornment after,” says Bhavya. “I’m also a very superstitious person. I exist in this realm of myth, mystery and belief, and I think there are many things that exist beyond science and logic.”

See no evil

The meeting point between the two brands became the nazar battu. While exploring ideas around protection, everyday objects and feminine power, the familiar protective charm outside Indian homes seemed to encapsulate everything they wanted to express. Travelling through south India, the founders of NorBlack NorWhite had long been fascinated by the different regional interpretations of these protective symbols. They also recognised that talismans against the evil eye exist across cultures, each shaped by local mythology and belief.

STARE translates that protective intent into objects worn on the body, conceived around a simple proposition: the body is home and adornment can become armour.

The collection comprises 13 jewellery pieces, including earrings, rings, hair clips, anklets and rings, available in both silver and gold, alongside a vegan leather bag and a pair of ghunghroo socks. Symbols associated with protection have been reimagined through fangs, lemons, chillies, snakes, moons, eyes, tongues and even the ghunghroo, whose jingling sound is repurposed as another protective device.

The motifs deliberately court discomfort.

“Feminine beauty is often represented as soft, tender and nurturing,” says Bhavya. “But I think we rarely see the other side of it — the chaos, rebellion, grit and fight that also exist within womanhood.”

The fangs, tongues, snakes and eyes, she says, carry an intensity that is both intimidating and alive. Beauty, in STARE, is not designed to soothe, but unsettle, and perhaps even challenge the person doing the looking.

“Being fierce is a huge part of the feminine experience,” says Mriga. “One that often gets categorised as being ‘crazy’, which is just a low vibrational way of shutting down a transformative expression that can destruct the status quo.”

The collection’s central face, with its unwavering gaze and almost intimidating presence, becomes a metaphor for womanhood itself. Fierce from the outside, deeply protective within.

“With STARE, we wanted to hold both energies at once,” says Mriga. “The collection is protective and caring at its core, but it does not express that protection quietly. It is sharp, dramatic, almost intimidating because sometimes protection has to look that way.”

Both brands describe the collaboration as inevitable. Building creative platforms led by women has meant navigating obstacles that eventually gave way to clarity and more supportive ways of working. STARE, they say, honours these cycles and finds beauty in discomfort.

The collection’s name, then, is not an invitation to be looked at. It is a provocation. To transform adornment from something merely decorative into something watchful and protective.

The collection will be available globally online through both brands, with select retail availability in Mumbai and Delhi. Prices range from ₹2,500 to ₹39,900