After Studding Them With Diamonds, India Now Flaunts Face Masks Embroidered in Gold, Silver Threads

In the Indian city of Coimbatore, an ancestral goldsmith has intertwined 0.6-millimetre thin threads of the purest 18-carat-gold to fashion dazzling face masks out of it. The mask is outlandishly priced at $3,670 (INR 275,000) which makes for an expensive collectable to hold on to for a long time.

Radhakrishnan Sundaram Acharya also designed masks made of silver threads that cost significantly less than the golden ones, but nonetheless make for a worthy souvenir in these tumultuous times. The silver masks cost $200 (INR 15,000).

Pictures of the opulent masks, which take seven days to make, have begun to go viral on social media.

Indians’ love for jewels and gold has been talked about since ancient times. The country, rich in precious gems has been obsessed with shiny baubles forever. In the last few weeks, several stories of Indians boasting of their jewels and gold put on face masks have made it to the headlines.

Diamond traders in Surat, a city in the Indian state of Gujarat, have designed diamond-studded face masks lavishly priced between $1,329 and $5,319 (INR 100,000 to 400,000). The city also happens to be the largest diamond cutting and polishing centre in the world.

​Businessman Alok Mohanty, from Odisha's Cuttack recently treated himself to a mask made of gold worth $4,670 (INR. 350,000). Mohanty calls himself "gold man".

​A resident of India’s Maharashtra got himself a solid gold face mask worth nearly $4,000 that he wears regularly.

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