Eyewear Industry Shoulders Volatility With High-end Push, Acetate and Metal Combo, Functionality for Spring 2025
MILAN — Against a murky outlook for the fashion industry at large, the eyewear sector is emerging as a resilient — albeit decelerating — segment, a bright spot in an industry that is experiencing the pinch of global macroeconomic headwinds and dented consumer confidence.
The three-day eyewear trade show Mido, which closed here on Feb. 10, attracted 42,000 visitors from 168 countries, a 5 percent uptick compared to the 2024 edition.
More from WWD
Over the long weekend, the fairgrounds were busy with industry operators discovering the spring 2025 collections of more than 1,200 exhibiting brands. The appeal of chunky acetate frames continued to rule the collections, flanked by novelty combinations of acetate and metal accents, green lenses and a focus on functionality.
2025 Industry Outlook
Companies are navigating the uncertain market with caution.
According to preliminary figures provided by eyewear association Anfao, the industry registered a 2 percent gain in 2024 revenues to 5.64 billion euros, with a slight deceleration in exports, down 0.6 percent versus 2023.
“The [eyewear] sector is in good shape, with low- to midsingle-digit growth prospects,” said Safilo Group’s chief executive officer Angelo Trocchia, recognizing how the industry has become highly competitive and multifaceted with technology and sustainability two key ingredients. In preliminary 2024 sales, the company saw a 3.1 percent decline in revenues versus 2023 but significantly stronger margins and improved cash generation.
“The market was flat in 2024,” said Giovanni Lo Faro, CEO International of House of Modo, the company grouping the Modo, Eco and Italia Independent brands. The company posted sales of 100 million euros in 2024, driven by Asia, the Middle East and Europe, the latter increasing 12 percent year-over-year.
“Last year started on a high note, especially the first five months with double-digit growth…then over the summer the German recession eroded our year-end growth rates,” said De Rigo’s executive vice chairman Maurizio Dessolis. “Predicting a budget for 2025 is no easy feat,” he added, echoing a widespread sentiment among exhibitors.
Perhaps not for eyewear juggernaut EssilorLuxottica, which bucked the softened business trend with a 6 percent uptick in 2024 revenues at constant exchange rates to 26.5 billion euros and “remains on track with our long-term targets,” in the words of Chrystel Barranger, president professional solutions for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific.
Quoting the company’s CEO Francesco Milleri and deputy CEO Paul du Saillant, she said “despite the macroeconomic scenario, the group looks at the future with confidence. The optical market is resilient, with demand for quality vision care an essential need for everyone.…We are focused on the brand new category of wearables and even if it is at an early stage, we have great confidence in its potential.”
Earlier this month, EssilorLuxottica acquired Cellview Imaging Inc., a Canadian start-up specializing in diagnostic via retinal imaging and received U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance and European Union’s CE marking under the Medical Devices Regulation to take its Nuance Audio brand, a convergence of eyewear and hearing aid devices, to market.
In 2024 “we were dealing with high volatility in both customer and consumer confidence, which too often resulted in very careful order and consumption behavior,” said Thomas Burkhardt, president of Marchon Eyewear. “Toward the end of the year, we also saw exchange rates fluctuating more, making planning even more of an art than a science,” he said.
“We are expecting the market to perform slightly better than in 2024 with low-single-digit growth in both sun and optical categories,” Burkhardt said about 2025.
Fabrizio Curci, CEO of Italian eyewear company Marcolin, which is set to report its full-year results in March, said his business goal for 2025 “is to safeguard margins, [as] qualitative figures allow you to make investments [and ensure] the company’s future development.”
“We’re seeing a mix of softened and resilient areas…what we’re banking on is the inherent, high-end quality of products for clients to buy into it and not just brands,” the Marcolin CEO said.
The High-end Push
To be sure, eyewear juggernauts are finding their sweetest spot in the higher end of the market. “It’s a much more stable market segment and it’s also populated by consumers inclined to buy qualitative products,” Curci said.
Cue the expansion of the luxurious Tom Ford Icon collection with new oversize, butterfly sunglasses, as well as the introduction of the first Christian Louboutin collection, hinged on the brand’s highly sophisticated codes — both produced by Marcolin.
At De Rigo “the high-end segment has grown tremendously [in 2024] while the mid- to lower end of the offering was largely stable,” said Dessolis. “However, I think it won’t be easy to replicate the same growth pace in 2025.”
For its brand Chopard, De Rigo unveiled the latest Red Carpet design inspired by the jeweler’s fine watch collection. The 23-karat gold plated metallic frame was edged in 58 rhinestones arranged in a floral composition.
Marchon’s Burkhardt echoed his peers’ opinions. “While we strengthened our entry-price offers for many brands for 2025, the consumer is telling us that despite budget pressures, they are happy to spend money on the brand and quality level that is right for them, if they see value in that purchase,” he said. In 2025 the company is integrating its recently inked licenses for Kendra Scott and Canada Goose.
Rosario Toscano, CEO of the Switzerland-based Akoni, part of the Alsara Investment Group and established in 2020, orchestrated a higher-end brand revamp last year for the group’s flagship brand Akoni, betting it could better sustain growth in that market segment.
“I like to describe ourselves as a consolidated start-up and we have to keep thinking out of the box,” Toscano said. “Following the brand evolution of the Akoni brand, our upward trajectory into the hyper luxury space is cemented.
“We serve such a niche market, with such a little number of items [taken to market] that we cannot blame the macroeconomy [for underperformance],” he said.
The company logged a 20 percent jump in 2024 revenues, although the CEO declined to share the sales figures, beyond saying he expects a similar growth rate in 2025 fueled by the global launch of an e-commerce platform starting from the spring 2025 season, as well as a new strategy for its licensed brands Valentino — now designed by Alessandro Michele, who succeeded Pierpaolo Piccioli in March last year — and Balmain, with drops synced up with fashion collections’ debuts.
Navigating New Reality in China and U.S.
The high-end bet couples with hopes for a global rebound of luxury spending, especially in softened areas.
In 2024 industry exports to Asia showed an advancement, up 12.8 percent year-over-year, with those directed to China growing 5.7 percent. Eyewear executives seemed energized to capitalize on that.
Akoni’s Toscano said the company is looking at opening a subsidiary in Japan, in addition to the imminent unveiling of a Dubai unit.
While the European region has presented hurdles, with Akoni’s Toscano describing the market in a “sounding impasse” (industry figures show a 5 percent uptick in exports), the U.S. remained a business lifeline for the sector, although they generated mixed performances there.
At De Rigo the country logged 25 percent growth in sales, lifting the company’s total sales last year, which were up 6.8 percent to 536.8 million euros. Ditto for EssilorLuxottica, which in the fourth quarter of 2024 increased its North American business by 7.8 percent at constant exchange rates to 3.1 billion euros, “driven by the strong recovery of the sunglass business at Sunglass Hut,” Barranger said.
At Marcolin, the U.S. performed slightly below expectations, with softened volumes but still strong qualitative demand, Curci said.
However, overall exports of Italian eyewear to North America last year decreased 20.6 percent. Although executives expect the country to pick up, the prospect of tariffs on the European Union is looming.
“I expect that riding the wave of a new presidency — that has historically been a business fuel — we will return to steady growth again [in the U.S.],” Curci said. “As for tariffs, they are very democratic, so we at Marcolin, and as an industry, will have to find our way to increase efficiency.”
Safilo’s CEO Trocchia offered a similar opinion and remained cautious on making predictions. “After two years of post-pandemic normalization [in the U.S.] in which our key channels…were defined by very cautious spending, we’re finally seeing a more dynamic approach, which allows us to make positive forecasts for 2025,” he said.
“The U.S. is not a big eyewear manufacturing country, so I’m not expecting a contraction in volumes of exports, but rather inflation of costs…which will probably favor products in a lower positioning,” De Rigo’s Dessolis said.
EssilorLuxottica “is leveraging its diversified and geographically balanced footprint. We recently invested to diversify our manufacturing plants for both frames and lenses and that gives us a higher degree of flexibility and a higher capacity to mitigate those headwinds. Anyway, it’s too early to comment on this at this stage,” Barranger said.
Marchon’s Burkhardt predicted the country, its domestic market, will perform ahead of 2024 this year.
Time for Independents Is Now
The brisk dealmaking and license-inking that dominated the industry in the 2022 to 2024 period is expected to cool in times of global uncertainties.
At the same time, niche and independent players are having their day, luring consumers who prize distinctive and original eyewear over brands.
The Berlin-based Mykita is no novice, but it’s enjoying its alignment with the artisanal, research and development-intensive trend that’s winning end customers over.
“Whenever you have a complex scenario…consumers tend to buy less, but better, and that’s all good for us,” said founder Moritz Krueger. “That’s thanks to our focus on quiet, discrete, functional luxury…on products that really overcome trends.”
His expectations for 2025 are very positive on the back of a strong business growth in the U.S. last year, its largest market, and a solid performance in Asia.
“From our side it’s been really good…everybody has had a bit of an issue with China’s sell-through [rates]…but I think we can balance that because there’s still so much untouched territory, and we are on a very good run. All the other Asian markets were growing, mostly all of them double-digit last year,” he said. The company is opening a second store in Bangkok and Fukuoka, Japan this year, adding to its count of 14 flagships globally.
“I think we have an advantage that we stay in the niche,” said Gisela Assis, cofounder of the Brazilian brand Lapima, which last year increased its orders by 25 percent in its two largest markets: the U.S. and Europe. The brand’s focus for spring 2025 on optical frames — with seven sinuous styles, each available in 10 colorways inspired by the curvy landscape of Brazil — aligns with the boom of the category for the company, now accounting for half of its sales.
The Italian L.G.R. also managed to increase revenues by 15 percent in 2024, a lower jump compared to 2023, but still outperforming the industry with substantial growth in the Middle East, said founder and CEO Luca Gnecchi Ruscone. He has been focusing on further elevating the brand positioning via collaboration with luxury resorts and hospitality players, as well as co-branded collections. With a network of six flagship stores globally, the brand is looking at boosting its footprints in the U.S.
New Eyewear Players
A boutique approach is increasingly defining the licensing market, with players such as Arena, known for its swim gear, tapping a new entity, Fluxus Italia, part of the HTP group, to debut its first out-of-water eyewear collection via a 10-year deal, building on the existing relationship on swimming goggles.
Designed by the Frank Stephenson Design studio, which implemented a bio-mimic approach to reproduce undersea shapes, including the manta’s silhouette informing temples of brightly colored sunglasses, the collection hinges on “spotlighting eyewear as a tool for self-expression, beyond logos, that are currently the single element of differentiation among glasses” as Fluxus CEO Gabriele Ferrini explained.
Italian hatmaker Borsalino also dabbled in eyewear with a niche player, the Ophy Eyewear brand, established in 2018 by Placido Minissale. The capsule collection of four styles named after movie icons such as Ingrid Bergman and Marcello Mastroianni, among others, is hinged on the shared artisanal approach.
What’s in for Spring 2025
The spring 2025 collections confirmed that the appetite for chunky acetate eyewear has reached fever pitch, allowing for newer interpretations, with oval and cat-eye shapes ruling the fair.
The former appeared in Lapima’s Ines model, at Max&Co., Dsquared2 and in the first feminine version of Persol’s signature sunglasses, among others.
On the cat-eye front, Calvin Klein had a cool Havana style, while embellishments furthered the sophisticated spin of the model in the Christian Louboutin seminal collection under the Marcolin license, with grips on the frame shaped as miniaturized red soles and a grid-like bridge. At Swarovski, a metallic interpretation of the shape was edged in chunky crystals, while an oversize version stood out in the Twinset lineup.
Forget the traditional metallic aviator and pilot designs this spring. The silhouette was predominantly done in acetate with styles covering a wide range, from retro to contemporary glam.
The Voyager model at Eyewear by David Beckham — a Safilo Group license recently turned perpetual — was oversize and done in high-contrast Havana acetate. A sophisticated version also appeared in wife and designer Victoria Beckham’s collection, with a hexagonal-lensed black frame. At Giorgio Armani, a pilot silhouette nodded to vintage eyewear designs, ditto for the new styles in Carrera’s women’s collection. At Lacoste, a pastel-hued, see-through acetate frame had tonal dégradé lenses.
Speaking of the latter, green was the season’s predominant color, offered by brands in different shades, from the pistachio lenses of Vogue Eyewear and Lapima’s avocado green iteration to bottle green on the Ray-Ban Mega Clubmaster and L.G.R’s mineral glass lenses.
The winner of Mido’s Certified Sustainable Eyewear Award for the European sunglasses category incorporated many of the trends mentioned so far. The Boss eyewear style, licensed to Safilo, is an oversize pilot shape with deep green lenses.
The combo of acetate and metallic accents was also a defining trend, with L.G.R’s Lions of Ethiopia model featuring a golden metallic frame and Havana acetate temples. Akoni’s high-tech and performative eyewear included a cool aviator style with metallic insert and visible core on the temples, while Balmain’s Colonel model featured an embellished metallic frame and acetate temples.
At Mykita the concept was taken a step further with the Mylon range crafted from a registered, 3D-printed material that ensures exceptional lightness, offered in combination with stainless steel inserts along the frame and temples in the Hybrid model. The material was also employed for the Incheon style, a slightly enveloping, architectural design with sculptural temples.
Perhaps suggestive of what House of Modo’s Lo Faro described “as the rise in functionality speaking no longer just to die-hard fans of minimalism,” companies — especially among the niche and independents — unveiled superlight eyewear crafted from high-end materials such as titanium and horn worked into understated designs. These were ubiquitous at the fair, from Akoni’s pricey Juno-Two style to Rodenstock’s rimless design and the limited-edition horn version with titanium temples.
Best of WWD
Sign up for WWD's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
