There are moments in this work that remind me exactly why I do it. Why I pour everything I have into this magazine, into these trade shows, into this industry. Sunday night at the Award of Excellence Gala was one of those moments — and it came during the presentation of an award that I have thought about longer and more deeply than perhaps any other we give.
The Keeper of the Craft.
I want to tell you why this award exists. And I want to tell you why, for me, it is the most important thing we do all year.
We Cannot Build a Future We Do Not Understand
There is a conversation that happens a great deal in this industry — and in most industries, if we are being honest — about the future. About innovation. About the next generation. About what comes next and how we get there. And that conversation is necessary and good and I am proud to be part of it.
But here is what I have come to believe with absolute conviction: you cannot build a future you do not understand. And you cannot understand where you are going if you have never stopped to honour where you came from.
The jewellers who opened their doors thirty-five, forty, fifty, sixty years ago — some of them nearly a century and a half ago — did not have the advantages we have today. They did not have the tools, the technology, the trade shows, the publications, the communities of support that we have built together. They had a craft, a conviction, and the sheer courage to build something in a market that offered no guarantees.
They paved the road we are all walking on. And for too long, our industry has walked that road without stopping to look back and say: thank you. We see what you built. We know what it cost. And we are here because of you.
The Keeper of the Craft is that moment. That pause. That acknowledgment.
What Happened in That Room on Sunday Night
When I stood on that stage and looked out at the seventeen institutions we were honouring — Maison Birks, Peoples Jewellers, Knar Jewellery, Charm Diamond Centres, Raffi Jewellers, Lugaro Jewellers, Howard Fine Jewellers, and every other name on that extraordinary list — I felt something that I was not entirely prepared for.
I felt the weight of time.
These are not just stores. They are the living memory of Canadian jewellery. Between them, they represent more than a thousand years of combined service to this country. A thousand years of opened doors. Of proposals said yes to. Of anniversary gifts chosen with trembling hands. Of heirlooms created that are still being worn today by the grandchildren of the original customers.
That is not commerce. That is culture. That is heritage. That is the very soul of what we do.
And when I asked the room to rise for a standing ovation — and every single person in that room stood without hesitation, without prompting, without a moment of doubt — I knew that this award had found its meaning. Not because I designed it well. But because this industry needed it. We needed a moment to rise together for the ones who made us possible.
And the Winner Is Knar Jewellery
I could not be more proud to share that the 2026 Keeper of the Craft award was presented to Knar Jewellery.
If ever there was a story that embodied everything this award stands for, it is theirs.
Founded in 1978 by brothers Greg and Jeff Buzbuzian in a two-hundred-square-foot boutique in Guelph, Ontario, Knar was born from an ancient Armenian heritage of artistry and brotherhood. The name itself — drawn from the Armenian word for a celestial harp — tells you everything you need to know about the spirit behind it. This was never simply a jewellery store. It was an expression of identity, of culture, of a love for beauty that ran deeper than business.
Nearly five decades later, Knar Jewellery stands as one of the most admired and most trusted luxury jewellery houses in Canada. Three locations. An international reputation. A Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Jewellers Association. And a community of clients across generations who do not think of Knar as the place they buy jewellery — they think of it as the place they go when a moment truly matters.
What Greg and Jeff built in that tiny Guelph boutique in 1978 is still standing. Still growing. Still setting the standard. And that — that stubborn, beautiful, unrelenting commitment to excellence across nearly fifty years — is exactly what the Keeper of the Craft was created to honour.
Congratulations, Knar Jewellery. This award belongs to you completely.
What I Ask of All of Us
I started this award because I believe — I genuinely, passionately believe — that an industry without memory is an industry without a soul. And an industry without a soul cannot survive. It can grow. It can scale. It can trend. But it cannot endure.
The stores we honoured on Sunday night endured. Through recessions and revolutions, through the rise of e-commerce and the disruption of the pandemic, through every force that should have broken them — they endured. And they endured because they were built on something real. On craft. On trust. On community. On the kind of reputation that no algorithm can manufacture and no marketing budget can buy.
That is the lesson. That is what the next generation of jewellers — the young designers, the bold entrepreneurs, the innovative retailers we also celebrated that evening — need to carry with them as they build their own legacies.
Know your history. Honour your predecessors. Understand that the road you are walking was built by people who gave everything to pave it — and that the greatest thing you can do with that gift is to build something equally worthy of being honoured fifty years from now.
That is what the Keeper of the Craft means to me. That is why I will fight for this award every single year for as long as I have the privilege of doing this work.
And to every Keeper of the Craft honouree — past, present, and future — thank you. From this industry, from this publication, and from me personally.
Thank you for everything you built.
Read the Full Story in Print
The complete Keeper of the Craft feature — including the full profiles of all seventeen honourees, the story of Knar Jewellery’s extraordinary journey from a two-hundred-square-foot boutique to one of Canada’s most admired luxury houses, and the full Award of Excellence winners across all twelve categories — is published in full in the next issue of Canadian Jeweller Magazine.
This is the issue you will want to hold in your hands. The one you will want on your desk, in your showroom, and in your showcase. Because the stories inside it are the stories of this industry — your industry — told the way they deserve to be told.
Subscribe to the print edition of Canadian Jeweller Magazine today and never miss an issue.
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Because some stories deserve more than a screen.
Olivier Felicio is the CEO and Publisher of Canadian Jeweller Magazine and Time & Shine, Canada’s leading jewellery trade show and awards platform.
