Designers license sunglasses but don't manufacture them

By Dini S. Djalal

JAKARTA (JP): A friend recently confessed to me that he was miserable about clothes and shoes, wearing each fraying item in his closet until they fall off. A free spirit, he disdains possessions and spending more than he should on life's necessities.

But my penny-pinching friend is not wholly immune to materialism. He has oval-shaped tortoise-shell frames to cover up his eyes. When he takes off his chic spectacles, he puts them in an elegant case. The logo on the case? Giorgio Armani.

"Sunglasses are important, you know," said Greg, a guide for cycling tours through Asia and Africa. "My job means spending a lot of time running around under the sun, so I have to have comfortable glasses. I can't buy those cheap, five-dollar sunglasses, because they break easily and don't offer UVA or UVB protection," he said. He spent US$200 on his Armani specs, on sale, and shows no regret of his purchase.

Shades, sunnies, specs, blinders, goggles -- many words have been tossed around for the two protective pieces of glass that cover your eyes. Sunglasses, and eyewear in general, have past their function as medical equipment, and are now key fashion statements.

Along with perfume, underwear, and bed linen, Market-savvy designers are not content with sketching suits or dictating hemlines; they want their names on everything from plates to pens, shoes to shampoo -- and make a ton of money in the process.

Eyewear is an increasingly important component to the designer's image because, to many, it's a necessity rather than a luxury. Prescription glasses, for example, have a captive market.

And unlike perfume or underwear, eyeglasses are visible proof of one's purchasing power. Among jet-setting cognoscenti, sunglasses are indispensable: some rock stars and fashion editors, hiding their crow's feet and probably bloodshot eyes from all-night partying, may as well be surgically attached to their jet-black shades. Eyewear has become so trendy that, when it was at its peak, many fashion victims with perfect vision wore glasses to enhance their appearance. In matters of self- adornment, glasses are vital.

And profitable. While plastic wraparounds are sold on street corners for pocket change, designer eyewear can empty your pockets. The typical price for an exclusive design is between $200 and $400, while bridge-line sunglasses can be acquired for under $200, but rarely under $100.

Yet as central as eyewear is to a designer's collection, few realize just how little involved the designer is with the glasses themselves. Customers buy designer sunglasses for the designer cachet, but actually designers license their name to eyewear manufacturers, with details of deals varying from license to license.

For example, the manufacturer of Calvin Klein eyewear, recently launched in Indonesia, is eyewear manufacturer Marchon, owned by Americans Albert Berg, Jeff White, and Larry Roth. Marchon bought the Calvin Klein eyewear license for the entire world.

Marchon said it bought the Calvin Klein license because, "It's a very aggressive company and Mr. Klein has a very good marketing mind," Mr. X, General Manager of Marchon Hong Kong, told The Jakarta Post.

So what if the eyewear was made in Italy and Japan, and the production controlled by the licensee, what is Klein's role in the business? "The optical business is very different than fashion. We take care of the industrial marketing," said Mr.X.

And advertising? "Advertising and marketing, we do everything," he said.

But where does that leave Klein? "Well, the image is from Mr. Klein, of course," he said. "But the design is from both Mr. Klein and our company. Eyewear has some very specific technical points and Mr. Klein does not know all these points," Mr.X added.

Yet Mr. X insists that the eyewear is, essentially, designed by Calvin Klein -- and there are between 15 and 20 new designs every year. "Mr. Klein makes the final approval of designs. If he doesn't like a design, it gets sent back," he said.

Funky frames

The returned designs, at least for the Asian market, are not likely to be gold-plated ones. Mr.X said that the most important detail Indonesian customers look for in sunglasses was the gold color -- normally not part of Calvin Klein esthetics. "But now, for the Asian market, all Calvin Klein models have gold-plated designs -- shiny gold and matte gold. But if you go to the U.S., you can't find them there," he said.

As for design details, Mr.X unfortunately did not bring any samples and only showed photographs from a catalog.

Not so with Lee Cooper Jeans, which also recently launched an eyewear collection with a head-turning fashion show at the Fashion Cafe. At roughly $100 each, Lee Cooper eyewear is not in the same designer category as Calvin Klein, and targets a wider market. But its marketing machinery doesn't stray far from the try-and-test path.

For one, in keeping with demands of the glitz-minded Asian market, glasses on display are also gold-plated.

Also in keeping with the intricate web of fashion industry, Lee Cooper eyewear is made by Logo, France's primary eyewear manufacturer.

The Lee Cooper rivet may grace all glass frames and metal cases, but it is Logo that has been taking care of production, distribution and advertising.

So the next time you balance those Armani specs and feel you've bought into the designer's prestige, think about the assembly-line manufacturers cashing in on the deal.