What started with organising university dinners has evolved into a career shaping how modern India celebrates; today, Jai Sharma uses spatial design as a canvas for meaningful human connection. Through his experience design studio, Envelop, he moves beyond visual styling to engineer immersive journeys deeply rooted in narrative and culture.
For Jai, the idea of designing a celebration begins before the first sketch is drawn. “It starts with listening and simply observing human behaviour. Rarely do people recall every detail of an event; they remember how a place made them feel – we call it living in a memory economy,” he reflects.
Over time, Jai recognised a gap in India’s celebration landscape. “At the time, celebrations were largely centred around décor and spectacle,” he says. Envelop sought to move beyond visual grandeur, creating experiences rooted in narrative, culture and emotion. Its philosophy remains simple: “We don’t design spaces; we design journeys.”
That journey begins with people at its centre. Jai and his team delve into clients’ histories, relationships, traditions and aspirations before translating them into environments where light, sound, scent, texture and silence work in harmony. As celebrations grow increasingly elaborate, he remains focused on something far more enduring than spectacle: significance. Authenticity, he believes, is the most challenging emotion to design for – and the most rewarding. “Nothing is created just to be seen. Everything is designed to make people feel.” For Jai, the future of celebration lies not in doing more, but in making every element mean more.
“If there’s one thing I’d want people to instinctively recognise, it’s that nothing was created just to be seen. Everything was designed to make them feel.”