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The shawl is 70 by 180 centimetres of Egyptian cotton, black, with a scene from the countryside stitched along it by hand and beaded tassels rolled by hand in Aswan. Nevin Altmann, about $116.
Nevin Altmann
In 1988 Nevin Altmann travelled to the Siwa Oasis with her baby daughter, Tamara, and found the embroidery the women there had passed from mother to daughter for generations. The work later took in Nubia, Sinai and the Nile Valley. Twenty-three years after that first trip, Tamara opened a shop in her mother's name. The Classic Fellahy shawl, about $116, is the label's signature, and the house notes that no two come out the same. For a smaller parcel, a leather passport holder carries one of Nevin's hand-drawn countryside designs, about $46.
- Classic Fellahy Shawl, Nevin Altmann, EGP 5,500 (about $116)
- Passport Holder - Fellahy, Nevin Altmann, EGP 2,200 (about $46)
Okhtein
The name means "two sisters". Aya and Mounaz Abdelraouf found their brass artisans in an alley of Khan el-Khalili, and opened a Cairo flagship in 2020. The brass rod logo sits on the front of the embossed cardholder: metallic black calf leather, 8 by 11 centimetres, four card slots and one deeper pocket, silver-plated hardware, $130. Okhtein also makes an embossed passport holder in metallic cowhide, $200.
- Embossed Cardholder, Okhtein, USD 130
- Embossed Passport Holder, Okhtein, USD 200
Vanina
Tatiana Fayad and Joanne Hayek started Vanina in Beirut in 2007 as a jewellery line, and everything is still handcrafted in Lebanon by a network of more than a hundred people. The Holiday earrings hang acrylic pearl beads from gold-plated brass stems, $48. The label is also stocked at Selfridges in London and at Bloomingdale's.
MIDRA
MIDRA makes a separate bracelet for each letter of the Arabic alphabet. The calligraphed initial bracelet is shown here in mim, set with cubic zirconia, sized to an average wrist and adjustable, about $45 in the catalogue.
Bardees
Bardees was founded in Cairo in 2015 and produces in small runs, with prints that go from calligraphy to painterly abstraction. The Moonlit Serenity slim scarf takes zellige tiles and old-city mosaics as its print: stars and hexagons in turquoise, cobalt, emerald, orange and fuchsia on lightweight satin, about $33. The same scarf comes in four other prints.
Reform Studio
Hend Riad and Mariam Hazem set up Reform Studio in Cairo after the 2011 revolution to keep Egyptian handweaving in work. Their cloth, Plastex, is woven from plastic bags and food packaging, chip bags included. The Ghoroub pouch, silver and white, takes its colours from twilight, about $61.
HAK The Label
Hakima Al Said launched HAK The Label in 2018, and draws on an upbringing spread across Asia, the Middle East, South Africa and Europe. The RIMAL necklace takes its shape from the traditional Omani Shahad ring, $95.
Dara Hamarneh
Every Dara Hamarneh bag is made in a family-owned factory in Tuscany, in small runs. The multi card holder is cut from the leather left over from those bags: pebbled calf, one expanding slot for five cards and some cash, 10 by 8 centimetres, £120 (about $152).
The edit
Nevin Altmann ships the shawl worldwide.
— The editors
