The Dot

Yan Di grew up around fashion. Her parents owned a clothing factory in her native China, and as she became older, she helped out part-time, learning more about the business and developing her own interests in Chinese and Korean style. “I also wanted to learn more about fashion because we don’t have a lot of designers in China,” Yan explains. “So I wanted to learn real fashion design. I thought that it might help me and my parents in the business.”

Yan completed two years of fashion design school before moving to Canada with her parents. Here, she discovered a gap in Toronto’s clothing market as she struggled to find the Asian styles that she enjoyed wearing. So Yan used her fashion design background and knowledge of the clothing industry to open up her own shop, The Dot, in May 2015.