The product range of the Falamank fine jewelry line is rich and diverse. Pieces can vary from contemporary cuff style earrings, calligraphy emblazoned charms to timeless antique style rings. The mixture of styles reflects the taste of Tarfa Itani, the creator of the Falamank brand, which she founded in 2006.
Falamank can be described as the marriage of highly rich oriental heritage and the traditional craftsmanship of handmade jewelry. Each piece is finely created and sculptural yet always contemporary in spirit. Itani offers three jewelry lines – each with its own distinct identity: the antique, the vintage and the modern. Her antique line features real vintage pieces that date back more than a hundred years, which are bought at auctions or from the actual owner and enhanced in her workshop. The vintage style is a new collection designed by Itani with the spirit of the past. For example, she uses rose cut diamonds and oxidized rose gold to get the antique effect. The third modern line embodies a more contemporary style featuring collections in all colours of gold, diamonds and precious stones.
“These lines are all part of my personality. I can’t be defined by one style,” says Itani. “We pass through different emotions and phases in life and my jewelry reflects the different moods we have.”
The breadth of the Falamank brand is impressive and Itani is constantly finding ways to re-invent jewelry so that it is fresh, desirable and original. Her bestseller to date is the ‘Mosaic’ collection where she uses real Murano glass. The coloured glass is carefully cut into tiny pieces and set in gold and framed by diamonds. She tells HOME this technique of jewelry making was used in Europe back in the 1930s. The successful ‘Mosaic Hand of Fatima’ piece even became the trademark of Falamank.
As with all her bestselling lines, Itani is always injecting new pieces and regularly creates capsule collections for special occasions. For the 2016 Christmas Season she produced a gorgeous line of star shaped jewels called ‘Spread The Sparkles’. Itani also wishes to spread a strong message with her designs, as seen with her ‘My Key Value’ collection. For this line she used ten words such as ‘compassion’, ‘love’ and ‘integrity’ as the motif for stunning bracelets, necklaces and rings. “The idea behind it was to remind people of the values to live by,“ explains Itani. Another beautiful symbolic collection is ‘The Child In Me’ done in collaboration with The Children’s Cancer Center in Lebanon (CCCL). Itani picked ten childhood super heroes such as Superman and Cinderella as the designs for this range.
Falamank by Tarfa Itani already has five points of sale within luxury retailers in Dubai, Qatar and Kuwait and will soon be available in Riyadh. In her native Lebanon, her flagship store, which is also her showroom and design studio, is located in Verdun.