Our Story
Our path has been far from straight. Seth and I both come from humble beginnings and both chose an adventurous path of exploration, foregoing the college degree, discovering more about ourselves with each new experience. When I traded that first piece of jewelry for tacos I was living in a school bus with a half-dozen other creative souls in Toluca, near Mexico City. Seth had started from Oklahoma on a bicycle about four months before. He headed South and we eventually met up in Mexico City, continuing together on bikes into Guatemala. I would set up in public markets and sell simple earrings, bracelets, and necklaces. Meanwhile, Seth regaled locals with country music played on an acoustic guitar. We slept in hammocks, ate strange tacos, climbed volcanoes, and made more friends than we could've imagined. As wonderful as our travels were, we soon began to miss the feeling of home. After coming back to the US, we attempted to make a life as farmers with a jewelry side-business. Neither worked because both needed our full attention to succeed. We left our last farm behind in 2015. That same year, our daughter and second child was born and the year we married our middle names, Dillon and Rose, into a love child of a business.
I had increased my skills as a silver and goldsmith by then and had begun growing my expertise as a gemologist. One thing was for certain, though– I still had plenty to learn when it came to running a business. Being the ‘live in the moment’ adventurers that we were, we hardly even used the internet before founding Dillon Rose. Neither of us had used Facebook or Instagram at all. To say we had a lot to learn is an understatement. Luckily, traveling the world has a way of putting you in many unforeseen situations and demands that you be able to adapt, learn new skills, and create solutions. Seth has the mind of an engineer (he’s one of those that can literally figure out how anything works) and our first year in business he designed and built our first website himself. He figured out how to master product photography and learned the lay of the Social Media land while I was busy at the workbench. We took turns caring for our young children and stayed up late reading books about entrepreneurship, brainstorming how we would continue to bootstrap this dream of ours. It wasn’t always easy, but we shared a passion for it that continues to this day.
The real beauty in what we do is the way a piece of jewelry can transform perception. Traditionally jewelry has often been used as a status symbol, a further separation of the classes, the haves and have nots. I want to flip that on it’s head and use jewelry as a connector. A way to remind us to celebrate our connection with others, with ourselves, and with the world around us. The mountain symbology found throughout our designs is an example of how you can connect with your inner strength every time you put that piece of jewelry on, but also how you can connect with the natural world around you and celebrate its beauty.
Thank you for being a part of our journey.
-Rachel