by Jo Rodgers at New York Times: Walk down a side street in London’s diamond district and you might catch the scent of frankincense and agar wood as it drifts out of the showroom of Alighieri, a jewelry brand that takes its name from the 14th-century Italian poet Dante Alighieri. “We describe it as the smell of church vaults and old libraries,” says Rosh Mahtani, who founded the company in 2014 to make heirloom jewelry. Now she’s creating items for the home, including this incense. The housewares collection, Alighieri Casa, is made up of tableware and cooking accessories with imperfect finishes. A bright, gold-plated candlestick curves into a lion’s paw — a reference to Alighieri’s best-selling lion medallion pendant, a talisman for courage — while another pair look like asymmetrical silver pebbles. Bottle openers shaped like lobsters and sea horses blur the line between ornaments and kitchen utensils; Mahtani wears one on a length of black leather cord as a necklace. Gold-plated and stainless-steel cutlery are made at a female-owned foundry in Delhi using a method called sand casting. The tactile pieces, which reference tribal hunting tools, feel precious, but Mahtani hopes that people won’t set them aside for special occasions. “Life is tough,” she says, “and most things we can’t control. But we can build rituals for ourselves at home that are beautiful. There’s a lot of comfort in that.” From about $190, alighieri.com.
