Look on the sunny side! National sunglasses day is on June 27th. Still, even without observing it, we celebrate Sunglasses Day everyday by just wearing our sunnies.
It’s no wonder that U.S. retail sales of women’s sunglasses have grown from $1.7 billion in 2012 to $1.9 billion in 2014 according to WWD. That’s reason enough to look on the sunny side.
On the spear edge of celebrating our sunnies is Lafont Paris, opticians and frame makers since 1923, the year when Louis Lafont opened his shop in the Madeleine area, Paris, France. Since that time the Lafont family has open 3 more boutiques, which are the symbols of its brand values: Parisian “art de vivre” and traditional know how.
But it was not until 50 years later that it received global recognition when Laurence & Philippe Lafont created the “Lunettes Lafont” brand in the 1970s. Today, Lafont eyewear is sold in over 40 countries.
Going against the trend of going public, the company is still today family owned and managed by Philippe, his two sons Thomas and Matthieu are working with him. Since the beginning, Lafont made the choice of full control of its brand image and creation process with the Studio Lafont, which Thomas is the Chief Designer.
Created by Laurence Lafont, the Studio Lafont guards stylistic independence of the brand. The professional background of Laurence in the fashion and deco industries continues today in the way of designing the new collections. Patterns, colors, shapes, the Lafont style, perpetuated by Thomas, is the expression of the very Parisian “Art de vivre”.
80% of the colors presented in the Lafont collection (acetate or metal) are completely exclusive, by the creation of patterns or the selection and editing the particular color themes. This work on colors is a continued search and development process made by the studio, which allows it to bring a new color theme for each collection.