Atin (Bahareh Khosroanjam)

Atin is the handmade pipe brand of Iranian maker Bahareh Khosroanjam, who works in Tehran. Recorded as born in 1989 and originally from Bushehr in southern Iran, Khosroanjam is one of the few women whose name is known within Iran's small pipemaking circle. The brand name is said to come from a word in Avestan meaning, as the story goes, "arrived at together."

From the Lathe to the Pipe

Khosroanjam entered pipemaking after marrying Saeed Nazarli, the well-known figure in the same circle who produces under the name Keresaspa. Her first pieces were not pipes but tampers and cigarette holders turned from briar offcuts left over in her husband's workshop; command of the lathe was gained on these small pieces. In the early period, working under Nazarli's supervision, she is said to have worked only a few hours a day, and her first pipe reportedly took seventy days to complete. After the couple settled in Tehran, the work continued in the same workshop, and as production became more regular, pieces began to be signed under the name Atin. The brand still carries on today as a small-scale, single-maker handmade operation.

Design Sources

The first benchmark for Atin pipes is the work of Keresaspa, coming out of the same workshop; both the aesthetic and technical approach draw on this shared ground. Beyond this, the twentieth-century Scandinavian school — especially Sixten Ivarsson and Bo Nordh — is counted among the names Khosroanjam turns to, as is the Japanese maker Kei-ichi Gotoh. Ivarsson's named figurative shapes and Gotoh's acorn interpretation reappear, reworked, in the Atin repertoire. The habit of seeking variety in shank and mouthpiece cross-sections is an approach established by early Danish series production, such as Stanwell designs.

The general tendency runs toward simplicity: clean lines and unstained, smooth-polished surfaces stand out, while forms drawn from nature — flowers and fruit — also work their way into the designs. Among the pipes the maker smokes herself, she is known to favor classic, lightweight shapes, the bulldog in particular.

Material and Engineering

Bodies are mostly briar, mouthpieces ebonite. Bamboo, bone, horn, and fossil ivory are used as decoration, along with woods such as pistachio, ironwood, purpleheart, and boxwood. The brand also continues to produce ornamented tampers and cigarette holders.

The pipe's internal dimensions and draw behavior are among the matters Khosroanjam focuses on most. New approaches are tested first on the pipes she smokes herself, and are not carried over into new work until the result is judged satisfactory. Her invitation in 2024 to prepare designs for Guo Hui Zhang's GH Zhang brand is regarded as the brand's first notable collaboration outside Iran.