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【Vancouver, C】MDW Jewelry Designer Meghan Weeks Is Reclaiming Her Culture

Jul 24, 2025

Editor’s Note

**Editor’s Note:** This piece explores how MDW Jewelry designer Meghan Weeks channels resilience and cultural pride into her craft, bridging Indigenous heritage with contemporary fashion-arts.

Fashion

MDW Jewelry Designer Meghan Weeks Is Reclaiming Her Culture
How MDW Jewelry connects with the Indigenous fashion-arts community.
by Erica Ngao – Jul 24th, 2025
SEWARI CAMPILLO
In Meghan Weeks’ new Vancouver studio, among her various tools and works-in-progress, stand two boxing trophies. The jewellery designer keeps them on display as a reminder to herself to approach life’s obstacles with determination and confidence. Her experience in boxing has mirrored her path as an artist.

“To have my mind focused only on reaching my goal and winning the fight has been huge,” she says. “I feel like they’re connected.”

After studying digital design and photography at art school, Weeks decided to pursue woodworking. She honed her skills working on custom kitchens at a cabinet shop and then became a wood-shop technician at the city’s Emily Carr University of Art + Design. In 2018, she started MDW Jewelry in her living room after taking a silversmithing course, during which she “fell head over heels in love” with the craft.

“I think of [each piece] as a miniature sculpture that you can wear,” she says.

For Weeks, jewellery is also a way to learn about and reclaim her culture as a Cree woman from Treaty 8 territory and a member of Sucker Creek First Nation. Her work often draws from Indigenous teachings and family, especially her grandmother.

“I always go back to childhood memories and time that I spent with my kokum growing up,” she says. “She was a vital part of my childhood when we had the privilege of her in physical form.”

Each piece brims with personal significance and is wrapped in whimsy and humour. One series of charms, inspired by memories of accompanying her grandmother to bingo, includes a little purse with a dauber. And a bracelet is modelled after a strip of Wrigley’s Spearmint chewing gum, a treat that her grandmother would always carry with her. One of Weeks’ favourite pieces to create is a ring featuring the head of a bison, an animal that holds deep cultural and spiritual connections for many Indigenous communities. When the ring is worn, the wearer’s knuckle becomes the bison’s hump.

In 2024, Weeks received the BC Achievement Applied Art + Design Award for her work over the years as an artist, designer and small-business owner. It was a full-circle moment that began, as many accomplishments do, with the desire to challenge oneself to grow. Weeks says that one of the most meaningful aspects of this journey has been connecting with the Indigenous fashion-arts community and collaborating with others.

“It’s very intimidating to put your heart and soul out into the world and get critiqued on it,” she says. “I want to inspire other Indigenous people to tell their stories and not be afraid.”

Art as Healing

“In 2019, I went through a health scare. I had to get surgery and take six weeks off work. During that time off, I was doing beadwork and feeling very lost. I went to the Pacific Association for First Nations Women, and we would have monthly [sweat-lodge ceremonies], and that helped me get in touch with the Creator and start healing. I told myself to just focus on making, and what came out of that was incredible because I felt like I had finally found myself.”

Personal Touch

“Everything is truly made from the heart. I want my customers to feel that love is involved and care is put into [each piece]. It has a personal connection from me to the client. I also hope people find humour in some of my pieces, because laughter is medicine and how we heal. I don’t want to go into mass production because I’m a very firm believer in slow fashion and I want to make sure that because I’m dealing with silver, I think about the environment.”

A Creative Kinship

“I’ve met so many other Indigenous artists, and we all get each other because we come from the same type of background of reclaiming identity and having residential-school survivors in our families, like our parents or grandparents. It’s absolutely incredible to work with Indigenous designers like Justin Jacob Louis, co-founder of Section 35. He used some of my work in his New York Fashion Week debut, and we recently travelled to Milan to showcase. It’s mind-blowing that my jewellery has taken me to these places and brought me to my community.”

Full article: View original |
⏰ Published on: July 24, 2025