Meet Maria Glezelli
Where it began
Athens
I grew up in Athens, where history isn't in a museum; it's everywhere around you. When I was a kid, I was always making something with my hands. I’d sketch, mix paints that sometimes ended up on the walls or craft decorations with any material I could find.
My father ran an electronics workshop, and I spent hours there as a little girl, surrounded by hundreds of tiny cables and components. I would take those cables and shape them with my hands, twisting them into something, and then I’d gift it to someone.
A few years later, my grandmother taught me to knit. In Greek we call it “plekta”, and those hours we spent together have never really left me. We would stay next to the fireplace, talking like good friends and knitting intricate pieces, loop by loop.
My studies at the University of Fine Arts introduced me to form, material, and history and after specialising in jewellery design and metalsmithing, I fell in love with metal and three-dimensional form. The moment I held a piece of wire in my hands and began to shape it, everything I had ever done suddenly made sense. The metal wires in my dad’s workshop and my grandmother's threads, had all been preparing me for that moment.
6,000METRES. BY HAND.
Los Angeles
My first brand, Algo Elegante, grew from the world I had grown up in: Greek mythology, the textures of the islands, the colours of the Aegean. I started creating jewellery using the same knitting technique that my grandmother had taught me, but instead of threads, I used metal wire. After a long period of experimentation and research, I adapted the old knitting patterns I had learned and began applying them to wire knitting.
While making conventional pieces of jewellery, I felt a bit limited. I perceived the body like a canvas to be adorned with statement pieces. I was always attracted to large scale objects so I decided to create a Victorian-inspired gown, entirely wire knitted. It was a very challenging and time-consuming project that took me one year to complete.
The gown travelled to Los Angeles, where I was selected for Wearable Expressions at the Palos Verdes Art Center, an international exhibition on the boundary between fashion and art. I presented the gown which was made from over 6,000 metres of wire and took more than 730 hours to complete.
INSIDE THE WORLD'S FINEST HOUSES
London
I moved to London, where I joined Tiffany & Co., and spent my days learning fine jewellery manufacturing from the inside. Alongside that, I worked in environments as different as Fashion Week, Selfridges, and the weekend designer fairs of London.
Then the pandemic arrived and I lost my job. Everything stopped.
For the first time in years, I was still. And in that stillness, I made a decision that had probably been forming for a long time. I was going to build a business entirely by myself. That is when Maria Glezelli Jewellery was born.
WHERE I DREAMT OF LIVING
Florence
When the world began to run again, I decided that the time has come to leave London. I had always dreamt of living in Italy, and that wish finally came true. I chose Florence to set up my workshop, the “cradle of the Renaissance”, a city where art, goldsmithing, and history are all interconnected.
In Florence, during the 15th century, a knitting technique, called reticella, 'the little net,' adorned the most famous women’s necklines and became part of courtly fashion. What started as a hobby in front of the fireplace had finally become my signature knitting technique.
What inspires me
When I sit down to design, I draw from the things that have shaped the way I see the world. Greek mythology and its symbols, organic patterns found in nature, and traditional motifs from cultures I have encountered through years of travelling and observing. Every piece carries traces of those influences, reinterpreted through wire and shaped by hand.
Los Angeles exhibition, 2017
Solo exhibition, Hydra
Knitting everywhere
Vicenzaoro fair, Italy
Finishing a bespoke necklace
the real Maria
I knit everywhere. On airplanes, trains, beaches and the floor of my apartment. Sometimes, even on a ferry somewhere between Athens and the Cyclades with the wind trying its best to steal the wire out of my hands.
I am also very chatty. If you visit me, you'll leave knowing my opinions on Byzantine mosaics, the best book I recently read, and which gelateria in Florence is worth walking for.
Last, I am restless! The only thing that truly quiets me is yoga and knitting with wire.