Latest Headlines – Page 165
-
Article
Urs Meyer Quits Satisloh
After almost seven years of running Satisloh and its predecessor, the former Satis Vacuum, Urs Meyer has decided leave the company to assume new responsibilities outside the ophthalmic industry, beginning in 2008. Beat Siegrist, chief executive of Satisloh's parent company, Schweiter Technologies, will replace Meyer as of Jan. 1. ...
-
Article
Transport Issues Impact Silmo, And Safilo's Pullout Draws Eyebrows
SILMO saw an 8.5 drop in attendance at its Oct. 19-22 event. Blaming a transport strike, the organizers of the Paris trade show reported 42,669 daily visits (this is not the number of registrations and visitors were only counted once per day). The biggest drop was recorded among French opticians, ...
-
Article
Is The French Market Picking Up Again?
French opticians, who have been used to annual growth rates of between 2 and 3 percent, saw their sales jump by 5.3 percent in the 12-month period ended last August, according to a panel commissioned by GIFO, the umbrella association of the French optical industry. Sales of sunglasses were flat, ...
-
Article
Hal Moves Into Brazil
HAL Holding announced in the last few days the takeover of two optical retail chains in Brazil, marking its first investments in the optical retail sector outside Europe and China. The parent company of Pearle Europe has been looking out for opportunities in the region, but according to company officials, ...
-
Article
Optical Corners In Italian Pharmacies
Franchised eyewear corners in supermarkets are an established formula in Italy, and this system is about to be extended to pharmacies there for the first time. They are going to be installed by Farmavista, a new company set up by an optician in Rome, Paolo Baroni, in partnership with other ...
-
Article
Stylemark Merges With Motive
StyleMark, the American company that took over Polaroid Eyewear International from Petters Group last March, has now merged with Motive Eyewear, which owns Lantis Eyewar and Personal Optics in the USA as well as Optimax in Canada. The terms of the merger were not disclosed, but the combination gives the ...
-
Article
Polaroid Offers Matching Sun Clips With New Frames
Polaroid Eyewear has launched internationally a new line of optical fashion frames called ?Optical Frames +,' developed with the help of an international award-winning designer, Thomas Trauth. Each frame is supplied with precisely matching polarized Polaroid clip-ons to ensure protection from the sun. The clip-ons are curved with a special ...
-
Article
Marchon Signs The Lagerfeld License
The big American eyewear company continues to build up its portfolio of premium international luxury brands through a global long-term licensing agreement with Karl Lagerfeld for the design, manufacture and distribution of sun and ophthalmic eyewear lines under his name, starting in 2008. These collections will be distributed through ...
-
Article
Lacoste Will Only Work With Charmant In Eyewear
Charmant, the big Japanese eyewear company that recently got a global license from Puma, is now adding a worldwide license for Lacoste prescription frames and sunglasses. Charmant had previously taken over the rights to the Lacoste brand for Asia, starting in January 2006, and for North America and Mexico, starting ...
-
Article
Rev Licenses Chantal Thomass And Launches A Special Internet Platform
The opticians affiliated with this growing French buying group will be able to offer eyewear licensed by Chantal Thomass on an exclusive basis in their stores for the next five years, starting next February, and to sell the line with good margins. REV's first line named after the French fashion ...
-
Article
Krys Takes Up A License For Cerruti
After last winter's launch of a range of exclusive eyewear for women under the brand name DKNY, which stands for Donna Karan New York, Krys has now obtained a 3 ?year license to distribute Allison's Cerruti glasses for men on an exclusive basis in France. Allison can continue to sell ...
-
Article
Optic 2000 Will Spend More On Advertising
Reiterating its results, officials at Optic 2000, the French group of independent opticians, revealed future plans for the group involving a stronger presence in Switzerland, a bigger budget for publicity and more heterogeneous optical stores. The group claims to have grown twice as fast as the domestic retail ...
-
Article
Visibilia Gives Italian Exclusive For Ungaro To F&O
From 2008, the Emanuel Ungaro Eyewear collections produced by Visibilia will be available in Italy exclusively through the 550 optical outlets that belong to the F&O consortium. The agreement will have an initial duration of one year. The opticians affiliated with F&O will benefit from higher than average margins, ...
-
Article
Vidivici Gets Belstaff Eyewear License
Belstaff Eyewear frames and sunglasses were previously produced directly by The Clothing Company, the Italian firm that owns this brand of sportswear, well known for its special blousons. It will now be produced and distributed by VidiVici Occhiali for the next three years, starting this month. Still designed by Belstaff, ...
-
Article
New President For Viva While Ross Invests In A Retail Chain
Frank Rescigna has been appointed as chairman of Viva International Group. He will also become president and chief executive on Jan. 1, 2008, when Mitch Barkley resigns from the top job after 20 years with the American eyewear company, based in Pittsburgh. Rescigna, who has 30 years of experience ...
-
Article
Mondottica Opens Offices In France And The Usa
Michael Jardine, chairman of Mondottica International, and Ira Lerner, an American industry executive, have formed a joint venture, Mondottica LLC, to distribute luxury eyewear in the USA and Canada from an office in New York. Jardine and Lerner, who has helped to market several foreign brands in North America through ...
-
Article
Italian Cycling Champion Launches His Eyewear Brand With Castellani
Francesco Moser, a famous Italian cycling champion and former world champion who already has his own brand of bicycles, is about to launch a line of sports eyewear under his own name. The glasses will be designed specifically for cycling, with six different models and two colors. Moser recently signed ...
-
Article
Rudy Project Finances Three Skippers
Rudy Project, the Italian sports eyewear specialist, has put together a team of top-class sailors: Sten Mohr from Denmark, helmsman of the BMW Oracle boat in the 2007 America's Cup; Jann Neergarrd, mastman and grinder in the same team, and member of the winning Alinghi team in the 2003 America's ...
-
Article
Julbo Enters The Optical Kid's Market
Julbo, the French brand known for its sunglasses for extreme sports, is launching a range of functional optical frames for children, marketing them as products that can resist extreme stress. With this range the company hopes to climb back onto a prescription frame market that its founder, Henri Beaud, left ...
-
Article
Rip Curl Asserts Its Technical Image With A Special New Eyewear Line
Rip Curl's new screwless line of sunglasses, which will be presented at the international SILMO eyewear fair in Paris this week, is said to be the first one in the world to use magnets effectively to make the link between the frames and the temples. The technique allows the user ...
