What started as a one-day course on learning how to mold wax has now turned into an incredibly desirable jewellery brand that the industry just can’t seem to get enough of.

“What I loved so much about jewellery was that I didn’t know the rules,” says Mahtani. “If I had gone to jewellery school I wouldn’t have enjoyed it because it wouldn’t allow me to just be free and be myself and I think I would have pretended to be something that wasn’t myself.”

The unique aesthetic of Alighieri is that it isn’t perfect, the shapes that Mahtani creates are imperfect but it’s in their imperfection that their beauty is found.

She says: “I always wanted to be perfect and I just never achieved it. Making Ailghieri was the first time I felt like it was ok not to be perfect, that actually it’s ok to be honest about feeling shit sometimes. That we all feel vulnerable and you don’t have to be shiny and polished all the time, you can be a bit broken.”

It’s that idea of feeling a bit lost, vulnerable and imperfect that is exactly why the brand is called, Alighieri.

“When I finished University, I just wasn’t ready to leave Dante and his story behind,” she recalls. “Dante famously wakes up lost in a dark wood and it’s in the middle of the journey of his life, where the right path is completely unknown to him. To me, being lost and having to navigate your way through is something we all face in our twenties and even later in life.”

Meet the jewellery designer that fashion insiders can’t get enough of