How affordable acetate disrupted the eyewear market

Not all eyewear is created equal. Much like everything else in fashion,
there is an entire spectrum of low to high, basic to couture, affordable to
luxury, factory-made to crafted by hand. Acetate remains the most popular
frame for glasses, spanning the affordable market for as little as 25 euros
for a no frills pair from Dutch e-commerce startup Charlie Temple, to
luxury options, such as a tortoise shell acetate and gold inlaid pair from
luxury brand Cartier, priced at around 900 pounds.

Five years ago the eyewear market was turned upside down with a new breed
of start-ups challenging the big luxury players with low-cost, high-quality
alternatives, migrating the prescription and optical market to online, and
re-writing the sales book on value and service. It spelled the end of an
era of stuffy opticians, overpriced prescription glasses, and boring
retail.

Where once low-cost eyewear carried the stigma of being and appearing
equally cheap, a surge of new brands introduced novel ways of retailing
affordable glasses with a high desirability factor. In the US companies
like Warby Parker and Privé Revaux Eyewear debuted designer spectacles
starting from as little as 29 dollars for a pair of frames. In Europe,
companies like acetate revolutionised the contemporary eyewear market
as purveyors of fashionable glasses for 98 pounds. Their visually appealing
campaigns are cleverly aimed at millenials, embracing codes of
individuality and inclusivity, striking a chord with a generation known for
its thriftiness. The era of owning an eyewear wardrobe was launched.

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Price focus

, a French startup founded in 2011, goes as far to offer
spectacles and prescriptions for an uber low price of 14,98 euros. The
company has adopted an aggressive marketing campaign, using slogans such as
“Stop getting f*cked by the optical industry” and calling buyers of luxury
glasses “stupid” for paying higher prices.

Do you get what you pay for?

Whilst acetate frames may be generally inexpensive to produce, not all
cellulose acetate is created equal, either. The higher the quality, the
better the gloss and transparency. But pricing tiers are not solely based
on materials used and it is difficult to quantify the price of exceptional
design.

Whereas companies like Polette are keen to advertise the affordability
aspect of their products, the design factor and level of detail in their
collections cannot necessarily be compared to high-end players whose
products are founded on craft and innovation. There is a discernible
difference at product level between a pair of glasses cheap to produce,
minimally designed with affordable materials, and those at the higher end
of the spectrum, where detail, innovation and pricier materials come into
play. Comparing an inexpensive cotton t-shirt by H&M to a t-shirt made by
Louis Vuitton should have obvious qualitative differences. We’re all agreed
that not all cotton t-shirts are equal.

Yes, the eyewear market has been disrupted with new direct to consumer
brands, many of whom are rightly calling for more transparent pricing and
eradicating over-priced prescription models. Yet calling potential
customers ’stupid’ for choosing to buy a luxury brand is both offensive and
unwarranted. In the quest for exclusivity, not all shoppers are in the
market for low-cost.

Photo by FashionUnited