Thélios, from start-up to recognised player in luxury eyewear

Glasses produced by Thélios for labels like Dior, Celine, Fendi, Loewe and others are now ubiquitous, featuring on red carpets and catwalks, as well as in stores and on social media. Thélios was jointly set up in 2017 by LVMH and Italian eyewear producer Marcolin and, after the luxury group took complete control in 2021, it has taken flight, hugely growing its visibility. In just a few years, Thélios has managed to earn the status of recognised player in the high-end eyewear segment. LVMH labels themselves have benefited from the group’s vertical integration. Their glasses and sunglasses have climbed even further upmarket, increasingly turning from logo-defined products to “precious” objects.

In three years, Thélios has doubled its factory’s size and tripled the workforce. It now produces for 11 labels from the LVMH galaxy (Dior, Fendi, Celine, Givenchy, Loewe, Stella McCartney, Kenzo, Berluti, Bulgari, TAG Heuer and Fred), and in September and October 2023 it acquired another two licenses, Vuarnet and Barton Perreira. “When I joined Thélios’s senior management in early 2022, we used to struggle to hire high-profile personnel. Now, we’re receiving hundreds of applications for some jobs. Since 2021, our workforce has grown from 600 to nearly 2,000 employees,” said CEO Alessandro Zanardo, speaking to FashionNetwork.com during a visit to the plant in Longarone, northern Italy.

The factory is located in a valley in Veneto nestling amidst the Dolomites, an area of Italy that specialises in eyewear production, where the manufacturer’s new corporate name, Thélios LVMH Eyewear Excellence, is proudly displayed. Last year, Thélios revamped its branding and corporate image, aiming to clearly redefine its identity while emphasising the link with the world’s number one luxury group, now with a 100% stake in the company. Thélios launched a new website in April, and has generally been very active on the marketing front in the last three years. For example, it has partnered with the Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica, the Venice film festival organised by the Biennale, of which it has been an official sponsor with the exclusive for eyewear since 2022.

For the Festival’s 81st edition, scheduled from August 28 to September 7, Thélios has reserved the usual suite at the prestigious Excelsior Hotel, setting it up as a showroom and lounge for guests and receptions. The suite is also available to the media, for staging interviews about the films competing in the festival. Additionally, to make sure its labels’ products are endorsed by movie stars this year, Thélios has for the first time invited influencers to the festival’s red-carpet events. 

According to Thélios, the partnership with the Venice film festival is a “strategic” one, since it underlines the company’s connection with the Veneto region, and because of the prestige accruing through the festival’s international reputation. The partnership is all the more obvious since sunglasses are naturally associated with film stars, and has greatly contributed to making Thélios a recognised name. As Hollywood actors have come back to Venice in 2024, after last year’s strike, Thélios has enjoyed record visibility during this edition, with among others Adrian Brody wearing Barton Perreira, Lady Gaga wearing Celine, Pedro Almodovar wearing Loewe, and Camille Cottin wearing Dior.

“Being recognisable and appealing, showing that we’re dynamic, are very important elements vis-à-vis the market and the public. We invite here our optician clients, our suppliers and employees, for them to enjoy a fine experience thanks to the prestigious venue and our brands’ reputation. They’re all delighted, and besides, we are able to meet and have conversations with various eyewear industry players,” said Zanardo.

4.5 million glasses produced each year

The Thélios factory, with its rows of workshops, looks like a giant beehive. Hi-tech prototyping suites filled with 3D cutting and printing machines are ranged alongside vast, noisy manufacturing areas, and the quieter, more self-contained sections for the finishing operations, where workers fine-tune the products by hand, in the final production stage. A busy calendar of upcoming deliveries is affixed to the wall: hundreds of prototypes need to be shipped off to various labels by September 19, both for the Paris Fashion Week runway shows and the new collection presentations scheduled at eyewear trade show Silmo Paris. 

Thélios’s prototyping department churns out 5,000 glasses models per year, while the company’s annual manufacturing output is 4.5 million pairs of glasses. “They’re all produced in Longarone, apart from the rare exceptions that need a special finishing. We don’t work on semi-finished items, everything is produced here,” said COO Luca Zaccagna. Between 60 and 65% of frames are made in acetate, 20-25% in metal, and 5-10% with plastic injection-moulding.

The factory has constantly been evolving since it was first built, and new areas are being fitted out. In 2020, an entire floor was added to the building, its initial 10,000 square metres increasing by another 10,000. In addition, a workshop was set up in Padua to develop Dior eyewear prototypes. In a few months, another 20,000 square metres of factory space will become operational at an adjacent site, bought by Thélios in October 2023 from Safilo for €10 million. This new space is currently being renovated, and will house a workshop for transforming and galvanising metal. 

Thélios’s Parisian headquarters, home to the marketing, communication and merchandising offices, as well as the design department and the product managers for each label, have been enlarged to make room for Vuarnet’s staff. In parallel, Thélios has completed its global commercial deployment, through a network of 15 subsidiaries.