Alexandra’s story
Bringing play to life
Bringing play to life
From her famed backgammon boards and poker sets to exquisite games tables and card boxes, Alexandra’s beautifully crafted, intricately detailed games turn play into something magnificent. Read more about our award-winning designer’s life, loves and passion for backgammon below.
Alexandra’s first encounter with backgammon was as a child in Cairo. In the city’s backstreets, she enjoyed her first games with an elderly local. Born in a completely different time and place, they were still able to enjoy the game, and each other’s company, because backgammon requires no common language to understand. The wonderful universality of the game, which transcends cultures and generations, planted the seed for Alexandra to create her first hand-painted backgammon boards.
Alexandra has always painted and enjoyed working with different materials, with a past job in product development opening the doors to the many different craft workshops she collaborates with today. Applying her training as a fine artist to a medium she had adored since childhood, Alexandra seized the opportunity to create handcrafted backgammon boards that are beautiful objects in their own right and launched her eponymous brand in 2010. A great lover of interpreting stories and understanding people’s characters, creating designs that are perfectly customised to their owners is the reason why she loves the bespoke process so much.
Using materials of peerless quality, always with sustainable origins and often in unusual combinations, Alexandra collaborates with leading craftspeople to realise her award-winning backgammon boards, which are canvases for meticulous marquetry, delicate hand-painting and bewitching print.
Commissioned by prestigious luxury brands as well as internationally well-known figures and royalty, Alexandra’s bespoke games and mesmerising works of art have homes all over the world. Winner of the Walpole Brand of Tomorrow in 2017, Alexandra received a commendation in 2019 for her Excellence in Craftsmanship at the Luxury Briefing Awards. In 2022 Alexandra was named as one of the 50 most influential people in British luxury in the Walpole Power List and awarded as ‘Hero for Craftsmanship’ by Country & Town House magazine – Great British Brands.
Going through the design process with you gave me so much pleasure. My husband says it is the most special gift he has ever received.
Katherine, USA
Alexandra explains in her own words how her love of Backgammon has been lifelong and how games can transcend language, culture and generations.