That summer holiday may already be a distant memory, but some hazy recollection of glorious, sun-soaked interiors could be lingering. We’ve just received the latest collection of jewellery from Chalk House, all inspired by Moroccan tiles. These pieces sit perfectly between hot summer nights in Marrakech and the rich jewel tones and gold sparkle of the holidays.

The tile work that is associated with the regions around Morocco, North Africa and Spain is an art form called Zellige. The mosaics are traditional created from coloured tile blanks that are cut into exact shapes and then assembled into complex tessellated designs. The highly geometric style originated out of Islamic faith, where the depiction of living things was forbidden.

Chalk House’s Moroccan collection is inspired by a journey to Marrakech where they fell in love with the geometric patterns and bold colour combinations of the tiles. They have extracted and abstracted the patterns to create a range of necklaces and earrings at various sizes from small everyday earrings and pendants to large statement necklaces.

Chalk House

From Malaika and Hazel: “We met while studying architecture. While at university, we started to make jewellery for ourselves applying materials and techniques used to make architectural models. We found that the pieces were very popular and the business took off from there. It helps that we have very similar tastes and we enjoy working as a team, constantly designing and bouncing ideas off each other.”

All the Chalk House collections are inspired by architectural design and pattern. They like to play with scale and patterns to make ideas work on a relatively small jewellery platform, which is very different to the scale of a building.