The final touch for every outfit comes with the jewels. A classic black dress begs for a statement necklace, a suit turns feminine with the right pair of earrings. And no one in Egypt has more statement jewelry to offer than Azza Fahmy. The designer has made jewelry-making into her playing field. Her long career creating unique silver and gold jewelry has elevated local craftsmanship and produced generations of jewelry designers. Fahmy’s legacy is even more inspiring given the strength with which she broke into a field that was predominantly filled with male craftsmen. Now, she’s passing on her knowledge to a new generation of jewelry makers at her design studio The Design Studio by Azza Fahmy (DSAF) in Cairo, Egypt.
Founded in 2013, the school is a contemporary jewelry-making design powerhouse teaching aspiring or young designers the intricacies of the craft. It focuses its efforts on teaching students how to express their creativity through contemporary jewelry making and design. The focus is to assist students in transforming and developing traditional techniques into contemporary pieces, emphasizing the importance of demonstrating high-quality technical and theoretical skills while maintaining their own identity and individuality.
One of the values the studio focuses on is interweaving contemporary work with tradition. It focuses heavily on merging the two together. “We think that for us to interpret the present we need to know and understand our past. Tradition and innovation, like mind and hand, need to move together.” The studio’s mission statement cites.
Fahmy founded DSAF after a series of workshops she held in Aswan in collaboration with the European Union back in 2011. She named the initiative “Nubre,” meaning design in Nubian, and aimed to enhance contemporary jewelry design in the area. It saw a large number of participants from Egypt and Europe designing their own pieces with guidance from several international guest designers and artists. The workshop’s success and popularity were the first seeds planted that led to the establishment of The Design Studio by Azza Fahmy (DSAF) two years later.
Whether you aim at a professional jewelry-making career or simply creating pieces for your own pleasure, the school caters to everything from short courses tailored for specific techniques, boosting creativity, or conceptual thinking to a full 2-year program with a degree.
