Nakhla Jewelry

As a young girl, Cairo-born Laila Neamatalla learned to make jewelry when her neighbor, Laila Boutros-Ghali, sent her to an Armenian Princess who made jewelry for a Coptic and Armenian orphanage. “She was 90, and I was 16,” explains Laila, the founder of Nakhla Jewels. “The sales of the jewelry supported Coptic and Armenian orphanages.” Years later, after honing her craft, Neamatalla knew she had to make the jewelry in gold as the pharaohs did—and thus Nakhla Jewels was born.

Today considered one of the best jewelers in the country, the family run business includes her husband, Ekram Nakhla and daughter who is designing the current collections, still inspired by the styles of various Egyptian civilizations from the times of the pharaohs to the Ottoman Empire. Many pieces are one of a kind, and all are made with semi-precious stones and crystals as well as amber and 21-carat gold beads and amulets.

Nakhla has two shops selling its designs, one in Giza on the Nile and one in the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), and sales continue to support the orphanages.