Holiday 2025 Luxury Brand Activations & Live Personalisation in Montréal
The holiday season in Montreal is always magical - storefronts sparkle, fragrances fill the air, and retail spaces transform into places of celebration, connection, and discovery. This year I had the privilege of partnering with incredible luxury brands and agencies to bring live personalisation, engraving, foiling, painting, and calligraphy to a variety of experiential marketing and in-store activation across the city.
From private VIP experiences to high-traffic retail moments, each event reminded me why I love the work I do so deeply: because personalisation creates meaning. It slows people down and asks them to take a moment to think about the person they’re gifting to. It becomes something chosen, created, and remembered.
Here’s a look back at some of the highlights from Holiday 2025 in Montreal
Maison Birks x Chaumet — Private Luxury Event (December 4, 2025)
The season began beautifully with a private VIP event hosted by Maison Birks at their flagship downtown Montréal location. Guests were invited to discover the elegance of Chaumet fine jewellery, and I was brought in to add a bespoke, luxury touch through live personalisation.
These smaller, invitation-only gatherings are some of my favourite environments to work in because the pace is intentional, the conversations meaningful, and every detail is curated to honour the guest experience.
Maison Birks — Gift-With-Purchase Activation (December 6, 2025)
Just a couple of days later, I returned to Maison Birks downtown Montréal for a public in-store activation. This time, clients who made a qualifying purchase received a suede valet tray personalised with blind-deBossed initials.
Blind debossing offers a subtle, tactile elegance which is a mark you feel as much as you see. Watching clients react when they held their finished tray was such a wonderful reminder of how a simple, well-executed detail can elevate the entire luxury retail journey.
A quick video recap: Personalised blind-debossed suede valet tray created as a gift-with-purchase at Maison Birks Montréal.
GUERLAIN — Hand-Lettered Bookmark Place Cards (December 12, 2025)
Next came a special in-studio project for GUERLAIN Canada. For a private holiday dinner, I created holiday-themed bookmark place cards and each one featured the guest’s name along with light embellishment and a hint of festive sparkle.
These pieces served two beautiful purposes: They guided guests to their seats…but they also went home with them as a keepsake and memory of the evening.
This is the heart of personalisation because it transforms an event detail into something lasting.
COACH — Live Leather Painting & Foiling at Holt Renfrew Ogilvy (December 13–14, 2025)
The following weekend was spent at Holt Renfrew Ogilvy Montréal with COACH, where I offered live purse and accessory painting as well as leather foiling personalisation.
Across two full days, guests selected initials, motifs, or small design accents — and I created each piece live, right before their eyes. Leather personalisation is such a special experience because:
✨ it encourages conversation
✨ it invites clients into the creative process
✨ and it allows them to leave with something completely unique
The energy that weekend was joyful, festive, and full of connection — exactly what the holidays should feel like.
COTY — Live Fragrance Engraving at Sephora Eaton Centre (December 17, 2025)
Mid-December brought me to Sephora Montréal Eaton Centre for COTY, engraving fragrances including Burberry, Marc Jacobs, Hugo Boss, and Gucci.
Clients chose initials or short messages, and I engraved each bottle by hand — often adding delicate crystals for a touch of holiday sparkle.
Fragrance is already such a personal purchase. Adding engraving turns it into a memory, milestone, or love note in glass.
GIVENCHY — High-Volume In-Store Activations at Pharmaprix (December 18, 20 & 23, 2025)
This year, some of my busiest events of the entire holiday season were the GIVENCHY fragrance activations at Pharmaprix locations across Montréal.
Across three separate five-hour activations, I engraved client purchases live in-store — often with a continuous line-up of guests waiting to personalise their bottle. These events were full of meaningful moments, including:
💬 partners choosing engraving for each other
🎁 parents personalising gifts “from Santa”
✨ loyal clients returning year after year
High-volume luxury activations like these require precision, speed, calm energy, and strong collaboration with retail teams — and the GIVENCHY and Pharmaprix staff were wonderful partners throughout.
L’Oréal Luxe — Live Engraving at Sephora Montréal Eaton Centre (December 21, 2025)
Just before Christmas, I returned once again to Sephora Montréal Eaton Centre for a L’Oréal Luxe engraving activation, personalising Prada Beauty and YSL fragrances, among others.
Sephora is always such a dynamic retail environment — and offering on-site engraving gives clients a beautiful reason to pause, connect, and interact with the brand on a deeper level.
What Guests Say During Live Personalisation Events
One of my favourite parts of working at luxury retail activations is simply listening. While I engrave, foil, or paint, I hear the sweetest reactions — little sentences that remind me how meaningful these experiences really are.
Throughout Holiday 2025, I heard variations of:
“I wasn’t planning on buying anything today, but this is just too cute to pass up.”
“My wife is going to love this for Christmas.”
“Now he has to keep it — it has his name on it!”
“I love everything you do!”
“I love how sparkly my name is now!”
“My name looks so pretty!”
These reactions happen again and again — and they speak to something powerful:
Personalisation changes the way people feel about what they’re purchasing.
It turns a product into their product. A gift into their story. A shopping moment into a memory.
That emotional connection is exactly why so many luxury brands invest in live personalisation, engraving, foiling, and calligraphy for in-store activations and brand experiences in Montréal.
Why Luxury Brands Choose Live Personalisation During the Holidays
Luxury brands and agencies partner with me because live engraving, foiling, calligraphy, and painting help:
✔ increase dwell time in-store
✔ create organic conversation & engagement
✔ deepen loyalty & emotional connection
✔ enhance the perceived value of each purchase
✔ generate share-worthy client moments
✔ leave guests feeling seen and appreciated
And during the busiest shopping time of the year, those emotional touchpoints truly matter.
Serving Montréal’s Luxury Retail, PR & Marketing Community
It’s always an honour to collaborate with:
✨ luxury brands
✨ PR agencies
✨ marketing directors
✨ retail leadership teams
✨ event producers
…to help create refined, human-centred experiences through on-site personalisation and in-studio gifting projects.
Thank you to every team I worked with this season — your trust means so much.
Planning a Live Personalisation or Engraving Event in Montréal?
If you’re a brand, PR agency, retailer, or event producer planning a launch, activation, or VIP experience in the Montréal area, I’d love to work together.
I specialise in:
🖋 on-site fragrance & beauty bottle engraving
💎 hand-placed crystal embellishment
👜 leather foiling & live painting
📜 calligraphy for gifting & packaging
🎁 corporate gifting & PR mailer personalisation
🏷 in-studio bespoke projects
I typically personalise 15-30 items per hour, depending on the service.
(If you have a high volume event in the works, not to worry - I can also help coordinate a multi-artist event with the close-knit Montreal calligraphy and personalisation community)
📩 Get in touch to book for upcoming brand activations, private corporate events, and holiday campaigns.
Holiday periods (including Mother’s Day) book quickly — advance scheduling is highly recommended.
About Neilson Letters
Neilson Letters is a Montréal-based luxury calligraphy and live personalisation studio led by artist Erin Neilson. I partner with beauty, fragrance, fashion, jewellery, hospitality, and lifestyle brands to create elevated, experiential marketing moments through engraving, foiling, calligraphy, and hand-painted personalisation — both on-site and in-studio.
