A trip to Italy proved to be a career defining experience for award winning designer Dorian Webb. During a semester abroad to study architecture while a student at Yale University, she traveled to Venice. Though the architecture was awe-inspiring, she was captured by the beauty of Venetian glass beads. She recalls, “Italy had always been one of my favorite countries to visit. The almost palpable sense of their history, the appreciation of the things that make life pleasurable, and the celebration of beauty wherever it may appear, was not only evident in its magnificent buildings but also in something simple as a carefully placed bowl of colorful handblown glass beads shimmering in a shop window.”

Today, Dorian remains true to the ideals she first discovered in Italy, and strives to share the essence of those beliefs in her work. Fluent in Italian, Dorian continues to travel frequently to Venice to assist in the design of the beads that are used in her creations, combining an appreciation of the past with a vision for the future.