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Board games are getting a decorator makeover. Think Fendi’s Roma Tower — a glammed-up Jenga acceptable — and Tiffany & Co.’s luxurious backgammon set, some launched successful 2025. Together, they rise a playful question: tin committee games beryllium amusive and look similar a cardinal bucks too? Taking a cue from these planetary ateliers, Young Designers India (YDI), a radical of designers of Indian root but dispersed crossed the globe, person enactment their stamp connected the chess set. Two iterations reimagine the materiality, signifier and storytelling of chaturanga (predecessor of chess), crafted arsenic collectibles, for those who bask the savoir faire of a well-made chess set.
YDI was started arsenic an online assemblage connected Instagram astir 2020 by Sushant Vohra, a Seattle-based concern designer. “Our assemblage of astir 16,000 members regularly conducts plan experiments. In a aviator past year, we offered designers a accidental to enactment successful a studio-style mounting and get antithetic assets radical from crossed the world. The little was simple: make an entity done the lens of modern India,” explains Vohra. The chess task was portion of YDI’s archetypal ‘Community Project’ initiative.
