Lebanese Jewellery Designers and the Beirut Craft Tradition

Beirut has a goldsmithing tradition that long predates the modern fashion industry, and it has produced a run of designers whose work travels far beyond Lebanon. The city’s jewellery trade is small, skilled and concentrated, which turns out to be exactly the environment an independent designer needs. Here is why, and who to know.

Key facts

Why Beirut

Three things sit behind it. There is a deep-rooted metalwork trade in the city, with goldsmiths and craftsmen working at a level that supports fine work. The workshops are small and independent rather than industrial, so they take short runs. And the Lebanese diaspora gives designers a route out to Paris, London, New York and the Gulf without needing a corporate structure.

For an independent designer that combination is unusually good. You can walk a prototype to a caster, have it back the same week, adjust it by hand, and make twelve rather than twelve hundred. That is very hard to arrange in most fashion capitals.

Alexandra Hakim

Alexandra Hakim is the designer to start with, and she is a good illustration of the point above. British-Lebanese, trained at Central Saint Martins in London and the Rhode Island School of Design, she launched her label in Beirut in 2016 and built it alongside the city’s goldsmiths.

She entered a trade that was almost entirely male and earned her place through the technical work rather than around it. The method is hers alone: casting found and spent objects, spent matchsticks, tomato stems from market stalls, khaizaran cane from a traditional chair, debris from fishing nets, directly into recycled brass and sterling silver.

Rihanna has worn the work. It has been shot for Vogue Italia and Harper’s Bazaar Arabia and featured in Elle USA, Marie Claire Italia and Madame Figaro. She now works from Madrid.

The material vocabulary is local

What makes Hakim’s work legibly Lebanese is not a motif borrowed from heritage design. It is the objects themselves.

Khaizaran is the woven cane in the seat of a chair that sits on every other Beirut balcony. The tomato stems come from the city’s market stalls. The sea debris was collected from the Lebanese coastline. Read together the collection is a portrait of a place: what people sit on, what they eat, what washes up.

That is a more honest kind of national design than a motif applied to an imported product, and it is why the work reads as specific rather than generic.

What to look for

• Handwork. The small-workshop tradition shows up as texture and slight asymmetry. That is the point, not a fault.
• Casting quality. Lebanese casting is good, and it shows on pieces with complex surfaces.
• Material honesty. Most independent work here is plated brass and sterling silver rather than solid gold, and the good brands say so plainly.
• A real story. Look for specifics that can be checked rather than heritage language.

Where to start

The Golden Khaizaran Small Hoops at 285 US dollars are the most direct introduction: a Lebanese chair, cast in gold, small enough to wear every day.

From there the full edit covers the matchsticks, the market fruit, the zodiac pendants and the new Canter horseshoes.

The diaspora effect

Lebanon is a small country with a very large diaspora, and for designers that changes the economics entirely.

A Beirut label has natural routes into Paris, London, New York, Dubai and Sao Paulo through communities that already exist, which means an independent designer can reach international buyers without the capital a fashion house would normally need. It is one of the reasons Lebanese designers appear in international editorial far out of proportion to the country’s size.

Alexandra Hakim is a clear case: a British-Lebanese designer, trained in London and the United States, launching in Beirut and now working from Madrid, with the work sold across several continents.

Craft through instability

It is worth saying plainly that this has not been an easy environment. Lebanon has been through sustained economic crisis, and the 2020 Beirut port explosion damaged much of the city including parts of its creative quarter.

The craft tradition has continued through it, and the independence of the workshops is part of why. Small ateliers with their own tools and their own skills are more resilient than a factory dependent on imports and stable power. That is a hard way to earn resilience, and it is the context any account of Beirut design should include.

Frequently asked questions

Who are the best-known Lebanese jewellery designers?

Alexandra Hakim is among the most internationally recognised of the current generation. British-Lebanese, she launched her label in Beirut in 2016 and her work has been worn by Rihanna and shot for Vogue Italia and Harper’s Bazaar Arabia.

Why is Beirut known for jewellery?

It has a long-established goldsmithing trade built on small independent workshops rather than factories, which lets designers prototype, cast and finish locally in short runs.

What is khaizaran?

The Arabic word for cane, specifically the woven rattan used in the seats of traditional Lebanese chairs. Alexandra Hakim casts it into gold hoops and cuffs.

Where can I buy Lebanese designer jewellery?

Coveti stocks 74 Alexandra Hakim pieces with worldwide shipping and verified authenticity. Shop the collection.

Is Alexandra Hakim based in Lebanon?

She founded the label in Beirut in 2016 and built it with the city’s craftsmen. She now works from Madrid, and the Lebanese material vocabulary still runs through the collections.

Why do Lebanese designers appear so widely in international fashion?

The country has a large diaspora, which gives independent designers routes into Paris, London, New York and the Gulf without the capital a fashion house would normally require.

Has the craft tradition survived Lebanon’s recent crises?

It has continued through sustained economic crisis and the 2020 Beirut port explosion. The independence of the small workshops is part of why, since they rely on their own tools and skills rather than on imports and stable infrastructure.

Read next

• Who is Alexandra Hakim?
• The khaizaran collection
• The matchstick earrings
• Brands like Alexandra Hakim

Sources

• Alexandra Hakim, About the designer
• Alexandra Hakim, Jewellery care
• Arab News, Lebanese designer using natural resources to make jewelry
• FashionUnited, Career Q and A with Alexandra Hakim

Prices and stock are as listed on Coveti at the time of writing and change with availability.

Written by Gemma Deeks, Fashion Editor at Coveti.