With a life and career that spans Tehran, Montreal and Dubai, fine jewellery designer Toktam Shekarriz has channelled myriad inspirations and cultural influences into her unique collections, including ready-to-wear pieces, masterpieces and custom creations.
It blends her Persian heritage with Arabic influences and the forms found in contemporary art and architecture.
Passion for art is a hard feeling to suppress. Even while completing a degree in computer science, Toktam, felt the pull of more artistic pursuits. After moving to Dubai in 1999, she began exploring her creative side and studying fashion design as an outlet for her ideas. But things shifted nearly a decade later when she flew across the world to Montreal, Canada, to pursue a degree in Gemmology from the École de Gemmologie de Montréal (EGM). From here, she obtained an international Gemmology Diploma from Gem-A, the Gemmological Association of Great Britain.
At this point, she realised she’d found her purest creative pathway; gemstones were now a way of life, she then enrolled in the EJM, a school dedicated to the knowledge of a goldsmith.
Her eponymous fine jewellery brand, Toktam, launched in Dubai in 2019 and continues to gather momentum. It blends her Persian heritage with Arabic influences and the forms found in contemporary art and architecture.
