All Eyewear Intelligence articles in Volume 15, Issue 5-6
View all stories from this issue.
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News briefs
Schalcon, has introduced Lipostamin, an innovative liquid that can be...
Schalcon, has introduced Lipostamin, an innovative liquid that can be sprayed on the eyelids to help combat hay fever and other common forms of allergy to plants and to dust, while moistening the eye. The unique spray is based on liposomes obtained from licorice, euphrasy, caper and helichrysum vegetable extracts. ...
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Article
At least two high-end readers specialists are doing well
See Concept is a three-year-old French start-up that has chosen to specialize in the development of top-end reading glasses, offering specially designed plastic-injected frames in a variety of bright and visible colors, retailing at between €25 and €30 a pair.In contrast with the readers sold in supermarkets, tobacco stores or ...
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Article
Vuarnet pushes its RX program to new heights
Vuarnet has launched a unique polarized mineral sunlens, the Polarlynx PX1000, to go with its sunglasses, including those with a nine-base curve. It is a progressive lens that can be surfaced in the back with free-form technology as part of a new RX program by the French company, which is ...
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News briefs
The organizers of the Mido fair in Milan have reported...
The organizers of the Mido fair in Milan have reported an increase of 5.4 percent in the total number of visitors at its latest edition at the beginning of this month as compared to one year ago. More than 45,000 people visited the trade show and about 25,000 came from ...
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Article
The new face of La/Es: new marketing for laminates
After a long period of relatively quiet management, this Italian specialist for plastic laminates for eyewear has decided to boost its business in the international market. La/Es is regarded as the second-largest producer of laminates for eyewear in the medium and top segments of the market. A spokesman estimates that ...
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Article
Luxottica will work with Google on smart eyewear
Luxottica and Google announced earlier this week a partnership for the design, development and distribution of spectacles for Google Glass that will involve the popular Ray-Ban and Oakley brands, using also Luxottica's retail and wholesale distribution channels once Glass will become more widely available.Google Glass is still in a beta ...
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Article
Silvian Heach launches eyewear outside its fashion stores
This respectable Italian fashion brand launched its first line of eyewear at Mido in Milan, developed in-house, presenting 19 styles of prescription frames and nine sunglasses for women, designed by Paolo Seminara and made in Italy.The brand, founded in 2002 and owned by a Neapolitan group, Arav Fashion, run by ...
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News briefs
Oliver Peoples, the eyewear firm founded by Larry Leight in...
Oliver Peoples, the eyewear firm founded by Larry Leight in Los Angeles in 1987 and owned by Luxottica, has announced a partnership with a Parisian designer, Isabel Marant. The sunglasses from their collaboration are said to be combining California cool with Parisian chic. They come in two lightweight styles in ...
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Article
Hal’s optical stores raise sales and earnings
Hal Holding, the biggest player in the optical retail sector in Europe, with a presence also in other parts of the world through GrandVision and other operations, announced yesterday a 4.8 percent increase to €2,531 million in the revenues generated in 2013 by the optical retail companies that it controls.Their ...
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Article
Marchon marches on at a double digit
Wearing a Google Glass shield, Claudio Gottardi, president and chief executive of Marchon Eyewear, told a small group of journalists during the Mido show in Milan that the company is expected to raise its sales by between 13 and 14 percent this year, or roughly at the same pace as ...
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News briefs
A top executive of Maui Jim denies a report that...
A top executive of Maui Jim denies a report that Luxottica is about to take over his company, noting that it is not the first time that the rumor is surfacing. Luxottica had taken out Maui Jim from its Sunglass Hut stores some time ago in an apparent attempt to ...
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News briefs
Micha S. Siebenhandl, currently vice president and general manager of...
Micha S. Siebenhandl, currently vice president and general manager of Rodenstock, will leave the company at the end of March in order to become the new chief executive officer and chairman of the executive board at Huber Holding, the Austrian company that owns of the underwear brands Skiny, Hanro and ...
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News briefs
Höet presented at the Mido fair a “Couture” frame in...
Höet presented at the Mido fair a “Couture” frame in titanium, “made in Belgium” with an environment-friendly 3D manufacturing process. It consists of about 7,000 layers of titanium, each of which is 0.02 millimeters thick. The front features a subtle honeycomb structure that makes it more comfortable to wear. It ...
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Article
Italian start-ups counter the crisis
The recession in Italy is producing more than just bankruptcies and shutdowns. In the eyewear sector, there are some local contract manufacturers that have gone out of business and then come back to the market with new products and new business plans, often using the “made in Italy” label as ...
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News briefs
Correction: Rolf Spectacles, a pioneer in the use of wood...
Correction: Rolf Spectacles, a pioneer in the use of wood in prescription frames, is from the Tyrol region of Austria.
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Article
CooperVision grows twice as fast as the market
The global market for soft contact lenses grew by 5 percent in constant currencies in 2013, according to the Contact Lens Institute, reaching a level of $7.5 billion. CooperVision rose by 11 percent for the calendar year, driven by its toric and multifocal lines of products and by its Biofinity ...
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News briefs
Rudy Project has inaugurated its first Italian concept store. It...
Rudy Project has inaugurated its first Italian concept store. It is a shop-in-shop within a rather futuristic optical retail store in Montebelluna, VisionOttica Duemme. Designed by Rudy Project's own creative team, it shows all the eyewear products of the company and its helmets. Rudy Project already has many mono-brand stores ...
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Article
U.K. optical sector recovers but competition remains intense
Demand for optical goods in the U.K. was up 2.6 percent in 2013 on the previous year despite strong competition between retailers, according to Mintel. In its latest study on optical goods retailing in the U.K., released last month. The British marketing research firm says that U.K. consumers spent £2.82 ...
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News briefs
Sunoptic, the Spanish-based eyewear company specializing in mid-segment frames and...
Sunoptic, the Spanish-based eyewear company specializing in mid-segment frames and private label for retail chains, has opened a new sales office and showroom in Milan, two months after setting up a new office in Morocco. Established in 1993, Sunoptic now has offices and showrooms in six European countries - Spain, Germany, France, ...
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News briefs
The Vision Council and its recently formed European Sunglass Committee...
The Vision Council and its recently formed European Sunglass Committee (ex European Sunglass Association) have opened registrations for their annual spring conference. After the successful event in Portugal in May 2013, this year's convention will be held in Budapest on May 15-16. The presentations and debates will cover topics such ...
