Walking into the Dean Davidson Atelier feels like an oasis in Toronto chaos. The store is beautifully laid out with gorgeous stone-like walls and beautiful jewellery laid out. Dean himself is just as effortlessly cool as his store, when we chatted about his work.
“I’ve had my business up for 16 years. I worked in a completely different field prior to this, and I got introduced to a clothing designer in Calgary where I was living at the time.That led me to launch in my first solo collection three years later and moving to Toronto and now it’s been a crazy ride. The collection sold in 300 boutiques around the world including Saks Fifth Ave.” Dean shares that he always wanted to work in a creative field, but didn’t know what that was going to be. “I had no ties to jewelry and it was just a natural progression into this world and I fell in love with it. I knew that was what I was meant to do.”
Davidson forged his own path and didn’t take the traditional path of training in jewelry design. He took some silversmithing classes at an academy in Calgary, learned the fundamentals. This lead to him approaching jewelry design in a different way than somebody who has been taught how to design jewelry work. He thought outside the box with a lot of his designs and aimed to push boundaries, setting apart his brand and creating a really unique line.
For Davidson, inspiration comes from travelling. We travel to a different destination around the world, and that inspires our fashion collections. As long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by people and cultures from around the world. I’ve always loved traveling so I’ve built it into part of the brand. Part of our vision and mission statement is to bring joy and confidence to women around the world. I hear that from a lot of our customers, that they feel really confident and love wearing the pieces. They’re unique and they’re designed to make people feel really special when you wear them.”
A big part of the Dean Davidson brand is giving back and philanthropy. For Davidson, this has been instrumental from the start. “Early on in my career, I had lots of people that fed into what I was doing to make this all possible. It’s wonderful to finally see it all coming to progression.”
Dean Davidson will be launching a new collection in August entitled The Nomad – an extension of a bestselling collection they launched last year, inspired by travels to Kenya. The pieces are a hammered finish, with Tigers Eye as the gemstone. The Spring 2026 collection will be inspired by travels to Thailand.
Hillary LeBlanc
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