Azza Fahmy: Refashioning Egypt's Iconic Visual Symbols

Mud-brick houses are hardly the first image that comes to mind when one thinks of luxury jewelry, but they are precisely what Azza Fahmy reinterpreted as silver and gold brooches for her debut jewelry collection, “Houses of the Nile,” in the early 1980s.

“When people look at primitive mud-brick houses, no one imagines wearing them as a brooch,” said Ms. Fahmy, referring to the Nubian architecture to which she pays tribute in “Houses of the Nile.” “But, in my eyes, everything beautiful turns to jewelry.”

Refashioning the iconic visual symbols of her native Egypt into contemporary jewelry designs has become Ms. Fahmy’s trademark.

The story of Azza Fahmy jewelry begins at the 1969 Cairo International Book Fair, where Ms. Fahmy stumbled across a book on medieval European jewelry and instantly realized that she found her calling in jewelry design. “That book changed my life,” she said. At the time, she was working as an illustrator for government publications. “The supernatural had a hand in shaping my profession,” she said.

Thus, she began a three-year apprenticeship with Hajj Said, a goldsmith in Cairo’s medieval bazaar district, Khan el-Khalili.

“I wanted to learn the basics of actually creating jewelry — not only designing it.” she said. “This is important because if the designer doesn’t know how to physically make the piece, it impacts the design.”

Before long, she was making a few pieces herself and selling them more quickly than she could have hoped. Gradually, she was able to amass some capital and started increasing her output.

Making that leap was no easy feat for a young woman at the time. “As a wife and mother I was expected first and foremost to take care of my family and run the household — you know, the same problems women everywhere have faced for decades,” she said.

Moreover, her family could not comprehend why a university graduate like her spent her time working with craftsmen. Yet Ms. Fahmy managed to pursue her art and develop the business while fulfilling her domestic responsibilities, and eventually earned her family’s respect.

“As I started becoming successful, they became more supportive,” she said. “They were proud of my success.”

In the early 1970s, she was awarded a fellowship to study jewelry technology and manufacturing techniques at the City of London Polytechnic, which she called her “finishing school.”

Upon returning, Ms. Fahmy opened her first workshop, hired two employees and started developing her original “one woman show” into a major business. Along the way, she has acquired a high-profile, loyal clientele that includes Naomi Campbell and Queen Rania of Jordan.