How a female artisan became the Arab world's top jewelry designer and captured a cult following ...

Fahmy, the driving force behind one of the most unlikely success stories in modern design, likes to have things just so The company today produces 40,000 pieces a year, ranging in price from several hundred to thousands of dollars, and her brand is a model not only for jewelers and designers worldwide but for Egyptian women: Fahmy is so famous in the country of more than 90 million that she is often recognized on the streets In an interview in her workshop on the edge of Cairo, in a district called the Sixth of October, Fahmy shared some of the practices that led to her success in the design business.

Fahmy's office has fresh flowers on the tables, and Fahmy herself looks comfortable and casual in a white linen shift with a bright scarf, while her daughter Amina, who has taken over about 80 percent of the designing, sits nearby, interjecting once in a while Fahmy's older daughter, Fatma Ghaly, runs most of the business operations "Azza Fahmy's story means no boundaries," said Yasmin Hamalawy, who manages a Cairo school for jewelry designers founded by Fahmy and an Italian jewelry designer, Doris Maninger.

Fahmy grew up in the Egyptian countryside, the daughter of a well-to-do family. . Source