Matthias Kipping

2026 London

Abstract: About half of the human population is experiencing issues with their eyesight. Some require medical intervention, but most of them can be corrected with eyeglasses or contact lenses (around 10% of the market). Eyewear is therefore an industry that touches many people during their lifetime – a ubiquity that stands in stark contrast to the lack of academic research outside the medical and optical sciences. In history, the medical aspect also seems to attract the most attention, though there is some in studies on clusters, namely in Italy. Most prevalent are (often commissioned) books about iconic firms and their founders, including Germany’s Zeiss for the former and Leonardo del Vecchio among the latter. The firm he created largely from scratch, EssilorLuxottica, is today the dominant player and involved in most of the value chain. The industry structure is complex with many different types of organizations and stakeholders whose roles and responsibilities can differ from country to country. These include the lens manufacturers, usually large Chandlerian-type firms, mostly based in Europe or Japan, where most of the innovation occurred historically and today. Those interacting directly with the users are optometrists and opticians. The latter used to fit lenses into frames and traditionally had to learn a craft. It is the evolution of their role over the past few decades, which will be the focus of the proposed paper. While there are large optical retailers, there are also many individual (often multigenerational) stores. Less and less involved in the technical aspects, they have increasingly become ‘fashion’ intermediaries. This change has also opened up opportunities for entrepreneurship in the design of frames and increased the importance of trade fairs as meeting points for creators and retailers. The paper reports on ongoing research, which draws mainly on a critical review of the extant literature and trade publications as well as some archival documents and a few interviews. The paper will conclude with speculation about the future of ‘smart glasses’ and their possible impact on the industry as a whole.