We were also finding that product sourced from Europe sold through more quickly and had fewer returns as the quality and styling was noticeably better, this was appreciated by the eye care professionals.

 

In the Fall of 2008 we embarked on an extensive factory tour through England, France, Spain, Austria and Italy in search of the best eyewear design team and a European centre of production for Opal‘s house brands. The search culminated into a partnership agreement with a well known designer and a well established high quality eyewear factory in Northern Italy.

 

We engaged them to design and manufacture, in Italy, our three key house brands !UY!, MISTTIQ and Sarah J. In order to give our !UY! and MISTTIQ brands a distinctive style and look, unique in North America, we needed a top notch design team.

 

Our search ended when we found Graziano, the Italian master designer for the eyewear industry. Graziano started out in the eyewear industry as production manager yet since he was a boy Graziano loved designing high end custom cars and he still does this in his spare time.

 

One day the Eyewear factory owner picked up a notebook of Graziano’s designs from his desk and was impressed with the talent of the young production manager. He was then moved into the company’s design area. Now 10 years later his design studio leads a creative process which interplays fashion, colour, and high end jewellery design into the eyewear product. He does fewer custom car designs now as his work is in demand by the high end European eyewear companies.

 

Graziano picked us up from our hotel in a beautiful Yellow Ferrari 599 GTB FIORANO only lightly customized. “It’s hard to improve upon perfection ”he replied when I asked him why he had not modified the Ferrari appearance that much. He said the Ferrari team were right on the mark with their simplicity of design. “Simple design isn’t always good, but good design is always simple” he ventured, as we covered the winding mountain road at near Mach II speed, the Matterhorn on the Austrian border looming large before us.

 

We found that we had a lot in common; both of us had a racing past. I had finished many years ago, however Graziano is still a weekend racer.

 

As we blasted out of a hairpin curve pinned to our seatbacks, Graziano used driving a Ferrari GTB as an analogy for eyewear design. “You don’t take it into the curve too fast because all that power can cause the rear to break way. You don’t let the right rear wheel lift off the ground.

 

 

When you are about midway through the curve and can see the end of the curve then let it rip! Like good eyewear design, it’s part science and partly an art.” We pulled up to a little restaurant outside Cortina, having covered 50km of mountain road in 25 minutes and were graciously greeted by the husband and wife owners and various family members that made up the staff.

 

After six courses and a good deal of Italian wine, the conversation became focused on eyewear design. Graziano pulled from his pocket a pencil case set. With great flourish, he cleared one section of the table and began drawing out his ideas for the latest style directly onto the table cloth. I must have looked a bit aghast, because the owner said to me: “Don’t worry! He always does it that way. It washes out.” We had earlier received 50 of his sketches and there were changes and new ideas poured forth.

 

After 3 and halfhours we were finished, having had the finest Italian meal I can recall. The owner folded up the table cloth and handed it to Graziano as if this was routine. It probably was. The following day we had a tour of the factory. Then Graziano presented his revised sketches. We were very pleased with them. There was liberal use of high quality Titanium, and he had even come up with a solution to the eye wear age old problem of screws backing out.

 

The new designs differentiated and addressed Opal’s key demographic groups: !UY! for any one between 20 to 70 years of age who wants a cutting edge fashion forward look. MISTTIQ for the fashion forward but professional look. Sarah J. a high end, stylish yet traditional look, many with jewels.

 

This brand has been a solid seller since 1990. Following are pictures of the frames that are scheduled to arrive from Italy between May 31st and June 30th, 2009. Your customers will notice and experience the colouring, quality and style that only the Italians seem to be able to achieve.

 

View our online catalogue to see the collection.

 

VIVA ITALIA!

-Kelly Jarmain, President