Amalgam, as an alchemical mixture of metals. Merger, they say in business.
Anne-Marie Chagnon jewelry acquired wellDUNN jewelry. The two Montreal companies were founded by creative entrepreneurs, Anne-Marie Chagnon for the first, Dominique Dunn for the second.
Since the completion of the transaction at the end of February, the five members of wellDUNN have joined the thirty employees of Anne-Marie Chagnon in her vast workshop on rue Casgrain.
Although now united, the two companies each retain their soul. That is to say their respective creator, who continues to direct her own collections.
“We want to keep two very distinct brands. My idea is not to… to chagnonise wellDUNN! “says Anne-Marie Chagnon, with a burst of laughter.
Yet it was in no way looking to grow by acquisition.
Surprisingly, the professional trajectories of the two jewelry designers had never crossed before.
However, Julien Proulx, co-owner of wellDUNN, had already met Anne-Marie’s brother, David Chagnon, the company’s general manager, through the Metropolitan Fashion Cluster. He informed her of their intention to sell the company.
“With the pandemic, with the intention of perhaps starting a family, several factors meant that entrepreneurship, in the context in which it was done, became more and more energy-intensive, explains Dominique Dunn. The motivation was less and less there, and we also wanted to free ourselves from certain administrative tasks. For us, selling the business was a couple and business decision at the same time. »
“David proposed the idea to me,” says Anne-Marie Chagnon, who immediately bought into it. “I love adventures. It was a way to have a springboard into the future for both brands. The two women first met last fall. “It was: we sit, we watch, do we get along, is there a click? »
Click there was. “It happened extremely quickly, especially for an acquisition like this. »
Because the two companies were more complementary than competitive.
Anne-Marie Chagnon founded her company 28 years ago. Its vocation dates back even further. “I could say it started in early childhood, but the decision was made in CEGEP. I had my first employee then. »
She counted up to 40. For ten years, she created collections for Cirque du Soleil, which sold them in its boutiques.
The design, manufacture and assembly are entirely carried out in its workshop, equipped with its own foundry. Anne-Marie Chagnon combines pewter, resin, glass, wood, in assemblies that constitute so many vibrant little sculptures.
From the first ideas on paper to production, “doing a whole collection takes me a year,” she says.
She creates “an alphabet, a new way of writing, and I’m going to say what story I want to create that year.”
With this more hieroglyphic than phonetic alphabet, she and her team compose words, sentences, verses concretized in the material.
The combination of shapes, materials and colors allows them to create between 1500 and 2000 different items (SKUs) each year.
The administration of an SME that had up to 40 employees before the pandemic has not clipped its creative wings.
“I come from a family of entrepreneurs and creators,” she says. It was two things that were already united within the family. »
Her father owns a food machinery business. When she was younger, her mother had been a make-up artist for special effects in the cinema.
Mixing entrepreneurship and creation, “for me, it’s natural. Creation is really my first passion. But I also really like creating the company. For me, it’s in the same branch of creativity.”
With the growth of the company, however, management has taken a prominent place.
“That’s why I went looking for my brother. Who was already a career in business strategy.
“We separated the tasks. I took more the creation and marketing side, and he took the management side, which did me a lot of good. »
WellDUNN finds its origins in 2011, when Dominique Dunn, then barely 20 years old and still a student, started selling her own jewelry. Her spouse, Julien Proulx, joined her in 2017.
She designs delicate jewellery, in gold and silver, which is assembled in her workshop.
“Joining Anne-Marie Chagnon was the perfect prospect, in our opinion, because we share the same values, the same spirit, without competing,” notes the designer.
“The two brands have different target audiences. I would tend to believe that wellDUNN is 20 to 40 years old, while Anne-Marie Chagnon is perhaps more 40-60 years old. It’s very complementary. »
By acquiring wellDUNN, Anne-Marie Chagnon adds a whole new area of expertise… and therefore opens up a whole new field of creation.
“I didn’t work with silver or gold, with what that implies a level of solder,” she says. This is one of Dominique’s great strengths. She makes jewelry, she offers jewelry in solid gold and silver vermeil, therefore gold plated. »
“In this acquisition, it was important that there was also reciprocity in terms of values: local manufacturing, creation, female leadership and independent retailers. »
This reciprocity did not take long to manifest itself.
The folks at wellDUNN moved in with Anne-Marie Chagnon on February 20. It was a decisive but delicate step, the beginning of a long commitment, the moment to symbolically put the ring on your finger.
That morning, Anne-Marie Chagnon had taken care to put on earrings and a wellDUNN necklace. “Dominique came into the office and she had the same ones, but hers in silver and mine in gold. For our first official day together, we wore the same jewelry. »
A brilliant introduction.
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Number of millions that have been raised by the skincare company Omy Laboratoires, in an investment round led by Crédit Mutuel Capital, to spread its products on the American market. Founded by Andrea Gomez and Rachelle Séguin, Omy has 27 employees. Soon more.
