The Founder: Alwazna Falah

A nail on the wall

Most jewellery houses begin with a stone. Wazna began with a nail.

Alwazna Falah was trying to hang a picture in her home when she picked up the nail and stopped. She has told the story the same way since: she felt its beauty in that moment and saw it, whole, as a piece of jewellery. She had studied international protocol and politics, not design, and she had no plan to become a jeweller. Then Cartier released a bracelet built on the same object, and what had felt like a private notion became a confirmed instinct. She enrolled in jewellery design and goldsmithing courses and, in 2017, founded Wazna in Dubai.

The nail became a screw, and the screw became the Strength of Spirit collection, still the largest of the house’s four. The house reads the screw as vigour and patience: the small, unglamorous thing that holds everything else in place. The first pieces were drawn for women, and only when they were finished did it become clear that they sat as naturally on a man. The collection has stayed unisex since, which in 2017 was not the obvious commercial choice for a Gulf fine-jewellery house.

Falah is Emirati, and the second and third collections came from the wardrobe she grew up around. Majestic Spirit is bridal, and it is the one place where she sets aside her preference for light, simple pieces: brides in the Gulf want diamonds, and a house that ignores that is not serving its market. Rank takes the insignia worn on the shoulder of a uniform or an abaya and remakes it in gold and diamonds, to be worn on the shoulder or around the waist as a belt. Love, the youngest collection, is for names, mothers and dates: the Year of Zayed pendant, Mother’s Day pieces, and pendants customised to a name.

Her method is slow by the standards of the market. A collection takes about a year and rarely exceeds seven pieces. Every design is drawn, made, then worn by Falah herself in ordinary life before it is released, because a piece that cannot survive a working day has not been finished. She works in 18-karat white, yellow and rose gold with clear diamonds, and mixes white and yellow gold in one piece when the design asks for it. She distrusts heavy jewellery and says so.

Wazna is a small house and describes itself as one. It was supported early by the Mohammed bin Rashid establishment for young entrepreneurs, which opened exhibitions, permits and advice to it. Its founder runs a protocol and events business in parallel and holds degrees in international affairs and strategic studies, which is not the usual biography of a jewellery designer and explains something about the collections: they are about rank, strength and ceremony because their designer’s first profession was ceremony.

The atelier is in Barsha South, Dubai. Bespoke commissions, from a single letter to a full set, are taken by appointment on +971 50 219 4440.