Rosh Mahtani started Alighieri the day before her 25th birthday. Every year, she marks another year round the sun along with the jewellery brand. Except this year, the London label inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy is turning 10. It has been a time of reflection for the thoughtful creator, who imbues everything she makes with a sense of the magical powers she invented as a child living in Zambia, and the poetry she immersed herself in while studying French and Italian at Oxford. In many ways her modern heirlooms, which she describes as “fragments of imperfection that celebrate the beauty of human vulnerability”, capture exactly the same spirit, but Mahtani herself has evolved as a woman, a designer and an independent businesswoman.
“When I started Alighieri, I was in such a difficult time in my life that I was really focusing on relating to Dante’s moments of being lost and afraid,” recalls the fiercely intelligent Mahtani, who radiates warmth on our call. “Now that I’m a bit older, I’m looking at Paradise rather than Inferno, and thinking about progression and light and coming towards the end of a journey, rather than the turbulent beginnings.”
To mark this evolution, she has condensed a decade’s worth of work into The Classics – a collection of 10 talismans that make up the fabric of the Alighieri universe so far. The piece she’d save from the waves in her own version of Desert Island Discs? The Tent’Ancora Necklace, a beautiful cracked vessel exploring the nature of falling down and getting back up again (tent’ancora in Italian means ‘try again’”), which Rosh felt grounded by during the “high speed train” that was her brand’s ascent. The Infernal Storm Earrings, The Over-Thinker Hair Tie and The Flashback Ring also encapsulate poignant moments on her career path so far.
“Work was everything in my twenties,” she says. “Now, it’s about working out how we do this in a more energetically sustainable way, because we want to be here for the long run. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.” Her first decision? Last summer, for the first time since she started carving out treasures from recycled bronze, she downed tools and silenced her emails for three weeks. Mahtani told her buyers that Alighieri would not be providing a September collection, but that new products would come when she felt like she was ready to create again, rather than on demand. The brand took a financial hit as a result, but Rosh felt like she held the reins.
“I’d like to see more of those conversations [being] had and for buyers to get on board with it,” asserts Rosh on the state of fashion. “Production is just hard graft, it’s always a hustle, but the pace we’re going at has picked up even faster than pre-Covid.” It’s particularly important, believes Mahtani, for jewellery to stay true to its “inherently sentimental” core, rather than being seduced into following trends. “There’s a temptation as the brand grows, to play the game,” she muses. “But the brand ethos and its celebration of imperfection speaks to the fact that it’s okay to go at our own pace.”
How Mahtani herself wears her pieces has changed, too. A passionate stacker of charms (when we meet she is usually dripping in gold and, like a magpie, I’m mentally making a wishlist), Rosh has stripped things back. “When you’re figuring out who you are, layering feels really powerful,” she explains. “A sense of confidence means you can wear one thing and really let that thing speak for itself.” Her other current joy? Silver – a big part of Alighieri’s future.
“I can’t explain it, it was this really intense force drawing me towards it – almost like I was being drawn into a different world,” shares the maker, whose creative world has thus far been dominated by ancient-looking gold and organic forms. “I just kept thinking about space and extraterrestrial life and the moon. I was looking for something that felt fresh, and like a new chapter in my life.”
The Classics, too, have acted as a “palate cleanser”, as well as an invitation to look back for Mahtani, who now vows to stop in the evenings, to take more spontaneous trips and to stay true to herself as a creator – one who still shoots her own campaigns. “For me, it’s always been a triumvirate of making, writing about and shooting a piece – it’s not complete until I do this,” she asserts. “It’s important to go back to how we did it in the beginning – there’s no big budgets, it’s just me and the light.” For this old soul who has her eye fixed firmly on the future, there is no telling what she can do. There is, after all, a lot more Dante to translate for her audience.
