WESTie goes to Toronto International Film Festival!

Today we want to share an exciting success story about a member of the WEST team-Dayle of Vintage Bling was was invited to host a gifting suite* at the International Film Festival in Toronto!!!

-----<>-----

Vintage Bling features unique, one-of-a-kind jewellery designs handcrafted using vintage beads, findings, clasps and more. This creative collision of two worlds results in fabulous contemporary jewellery inspired by a passion for vintage flavor.

Here's the story of how Dayle made it to the TIFF.

In mid Aug I received a message from the CEO of a company called DPA Gifting Suites telling me that she had found my brand on line and absolutely loved my jewelry. “I would really love to bring your brand to Toronto for the Toronto International Film Festival.” She went on to tell me that she has been doing gifting suites internationally for 8 years and had never seen jewelry like mine anywhere. Since I had done the Oh Canada gifting suite in Hollywood for the 2010 Golden Globes, I had a good idea of what this would entail, plus I had been wanting to do TIFF for several years. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to make it happen.

The biggest issue was the time frame as TIFF was only a few weeks away. To complicate matters even more, the admin staff at my regular job were on holidays and I needed to submit a request for personal leave in order to confirm and prepare. I received approval for personal leave less than 1 ½ weeks before I was to land in Toronto. I needed to have a minimum of 150 gifts to hand out at the gifting suite, and such a short time to prepare. The easiest and quickest thing to make was bracelets with gorgeous vintage beads and vintage Swarovski crystal.

So, burning the candle at both ends, I got 160 of them made in time. Even though my intent had been to hand out only these bracelets, the celebs were crazy over all my glitzy rhinestone pieces, earrings, rings and bracelets. Vintage Bling is so Red Carpet ready and I was told over and over that they would wear my pieces on the Red Carpet for film premieres and after parties.  So, with their promises of pictures, I ended up giving away almost all of my earrings, rings, and even a few of my Great Gatsby inspired bracelets.

One of the best encounters I had was with Robert Herjavek of Dragon’s Den. He really loved Vintage Bling and the concept behind it. He thought my designs were incredible and gave me great advice. Two of the things he said were that my prices are too low and I need to go bigger. His wife and daughter were with him and I gifted his wife the gorgeous Gatsby inspired bracelet and his daughter chose a ring. Both said they would be going online to purchase in the future, so I really hope they follow through.

Another great story is meeting Stephen Moyer (True Blood). He said my jewelry was beautiful and he buys all his wife’s jewelry. Stephen looked over my booth and said, “Of everything you have here, you know what I want the most? That beautiful picture frame with your business card in it.” I said , “Really? That’s what you want?” His response was “She will love having that sitting on her dresser where she can see it every day.” My interpretation of that is-she can order anything she wants from your website--I sure hope I’m right. His wife, BTW, is Winnipeg born actress Anna Paquin! I did give him the frame as well as a pair of earrings for Anna.

Some of the other celebs I met were: Mireille Enos (Devil's Knot; World War Z; The Killing), Irrfan Khan (Life of Pi; Slumdog Millionaire), Alfre Woodard (12 Years a Slave; Steel Magnolias; True Blood), Amrita Acharia ( I Am Yours; Game of Thrones), as well as many characters from TV series such as Rookie Blue, The Listener, Crash, Republic of Doyle and Degrassi the Next Generation.

A very common question was "Is this available online?" I always responded with the information that it’s available on my website as well as my Etsy store.

-----<>-----

We love hearing and sharing how our WESTies succeed! Congratulations Dayle!

*For those of you new to the concept a gift suite is "a location where several companies give products to celebrities in exchange for the celebrity taking a photo with the product or on a red carpet while standing in front of a press wall displaying company logos" courtesy of wikipedia.org