Fully Booked

Nostalgia tugs at the fond memories of childhood summers. Spare time spilled over and sun-bleached days were spent exploring and staying up way past bedtime. Admittedly, the summertime means something a little different now we are all grown up. Sweaty commutes and the awful realisation that work won’t grant a 6 week break (something we’re still getting used to) it’’s no wonder that the warmer weather fosters an even warmer nostalgia for those childhood holidays.  

For Rosh Mahtani, founder and designer of London-based bespoke jewellery brand Alighieri, that precious stretch of inspiration and escapism is preserved in her new collection – particularly the summer’s accommodation of endless and luxurious summer reading. Aptly named Bookworm, Mahtani presents an anthology of pieces each designed to evoke the tender moments we spend by ourselves reading and writing. 

With much of our note-taking and reading now happening on screens and operating within the digital realm, Alighieri resurrects an appreciation for physical media through the medium of beautifully crafted sterling silver and gold-plated wearable pieces. The Annotater Necklace, a divinely chic accessory features a chain and sterling silver case holding a small red carpenter’s pencil is ideal for jotting down notes or scribbling annotations into your favourite books. Suddenly, the convenience of the Notes App has been one-upped by Mahtani’s gorgeous answer to writing on the move. Extending her nostalgia fuelled vision, Mahtani harks back to the child-like joy of discovery with her Poet’s Lens necklace. Cast in recycled bronze and plated with 24K gold, a dainty magnifying glass hangs from a chain, echoing the childhood experience of discovery and exploration. 

While reading, writing and overall literary exploration are the core themes at the heart of Bookworm, Mahtani avoids an on-the-nose realisation of her vision and expands more on the nuances of these experiences. The Bookspine Necklace features a sterling silver spine, paying homage to our physical interactions with books – cracking them open, a once-rigid structure is moulded by our touch. The molten effect of the necklace evokes this movement. Inkwells are reimagined as dainty earrings, a choker and a necklace, again calling back to the very physical ways we participate with how we write and how we read. 

Jewellery as a sentiment signifer is nothing new, and yet Alighieri’s subtle and beautiful Bookworm collection centres an independent intimacy that’s often disregarded by a contemporary culture that favours a more overt approach to, well, everything. Mahtani’s pieces encourage quiet moments of introspection, all the way maintaining a thought-provoking and precious aesthetic vision.