Designers to Watch: Jalan Sahbá

Jalan Sahbá is a woman after our own heart – especially if her gorgeous handbags and clutches are anything to go by. Born and raised in Italy, followed by influential years spent between India, Africa and North America too, meet the talent that’s taking the design world by force.

Trained in interior design, Jalan’s appreciation for handbags comes from her enthusiasm for impeccably crafted objects and diverse expressions of art, culture and design. Her parents are both artistic ­­– her mother an American actress and father a Persian architect – so, she was practically born with a visual mastermind, but Jalan is firm in believing that no single culture or experience has influenced her work; it’s snippets of her diverse and culturally rich memories from living across the globe that produce particular concepts.

Her latest collection L’Odissea is, of course, another celebration of Italian craftsmanship and materials drawn from her travels. It features the brand’s signature horn-shaped clasps and evident appreciation for finer materials – this time, calf leather – as well as semiprecious stones (including amethyst, amzonite, rhodochroiste and squarts) that are finely carved by royal jewelers from India and intricately placed onto her clutches.