Glasses, also known as eyeglasses and spectacles, are vision eyewear with clear or tinted lenses mounted in a frame that holds them in front of a person's eyes, typically utilizing a bridge over the nose and hinged arms, known as temples or temple pieces, that rest over the ears.
Luxottica Group S.p.A. is an Italian eyewear multinational corporation headquartered in Milan. As a vertically integrated company, Luxottica designs, manufactures, distributes, and retails its eyewear brands through its own subsidiaries. It is the largest eyewear company in the world. It is, since October 2018, a subsidiary of EssilorLuxottica, which arose out of a merger between the Italian company and the French ophthalmic optics corporation Essilor.
Ray-Ban is a brand of luxury sunglasses and eyeglasses created in 1936 by Bausch & Lomb. The brand is best known for its Wayfarer and Aviator lines of sunglasses. In 1999, Bausch & Lomb sold the brand to Italian eyewear conglomerate Luxottica Group for a reported $640 million.
LensCrafters is an international retailer of prescription eyewear and prescription sunglasses. Its stores usually host independent optometrists on-site or in an adjacent store. The company has its corporate headquarters in Mason, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati in the US.
An optician is an individual who fits eyeglasses or contact lenses by filling a refractive prescription from an optometrist or ophthalmologist. They are able to translate and adapt ophthalmic prescriptions, dispense products, and work with accessories. There are several specialties within the field.
Vision Express is a British eyewear company established in 1988, now owned by EssilorLuxottica. It sells spectacles, sunglasses and contact lenses.
John Jacob Bausch was a German-American maker of optical instruments who co-founded Bausch & Lomb. Over six decades he transformed his small, local optical shop into a large-scale international enterprise, pioneering the American optical industry.
Essilor International is a French multinational corporation specialized in the design, manufacture and sale of ophthalmic lenses, optical equipment and instruments. It is the world's largest manufacturer of ophthalmic lenses. Founded in 1972 out of the merger of two French companies operating in the sector, Essel and Silor, it is headquartered in Charenton-le-Pont, near Paris. It is, since October 2018, a subsidiary of EssilorLuxottica which arose out of a merger between Essilor and the Italian eyewear corporation Luxottica.
Pupillary distance (PD), more correctly known as interpupillary distance (IPD) is the distance in millimeters between the centers of each pupil.
Eyewear is a term used to refer to all devices worn over both of a person's eyes, or occasionally a single eye, for one or more of a variety of purposes. Though historically used for vision improvement and correction, eyewear has also evolved into eye protection, for fashion and aesthetic purposes, and starting in the late 20th century, computers and virtual reality.
Browline glasses are a style of eyeglass frames where the "bold" upper part holding the lenses resembles eyebrows framing the eyes. They were very popular during the 1950s and 1960s, especially in the United States of America. The glasses were first manufactured by Shuron Ltd in 1947 under the "Ronsir" brand, and quickly emulated by various other manufacturers. The design became the most common style of eyeglasses throughout the 1950s and the early 1960s before it was surpassed in popularity by solid plastic styles. Browlines enjoyed a renaissance as sunglasses in the 1980s before returning to popularity in the 2010s, with the rise of retro style and the hipster subculture.
Cohen's Fashion Optical is an optical retailer headquartered in New York City featuring fashion products such as eyeglasses, frames and sunglasses, lenses, contact lenses, and accessories. Professional eye exams are usually available with on-site Doctors of Optometry.
Rimless eyeglasses are a type of eyeglasses in which the lenses are mounted directly to the bridge or temples. The style is divided into two subtypes: three-piece glasses are composed of lenses mounted to a bridge and two separate temple arms, while rimways feature a supporting arch that connects the temples to the bridge and provides extra stability for the lenses.
Warby Parker Inc. is an American manufacturer and retailer of prescription glasses, contact lenses, and sunglasses, based in New York City. Founded in 2010, it was initially an online-only retailer. It now sells primarily through more than 200 physical retail stores across the U.S. and Canada.
Ditto was a company that sold software that enabled eyewear companies to sell their products online using virtual fitting. Originally Ditto was a retailer that sold designer prescription eyeglasses and sunglasses. The company was originally based in San Francisco, CA before moving to Oakland, CA in 2018. It used virtual fitting technology to let customers try on eyeglass frames from a computer. The technology measured a customer's face by homing in on pupils, ears, cheekbones, ears and other facial landmarks, and then produced images of dozens of different pairs of glasses that might be a good fit.
Eyebuydirect, Inc. is an online retailer of prescription glasses, based in Austin, Texas. Eyebuydirect also sells prescription and non-prescription sunglasses, sport sunglasses, and computer glasses designed to reduce glare.
Clearly is an online retailer of contact lenses, eyeglasses and sunglasses headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. The company, founded in 2000, is a subsidiary of the French lens manufacturer Essilor, which acquired it in 2014. Essilor merged with Luxottica in 2018 to form EssilorLuxottica, thus making Clearly a subsidiary of the new entity. Clearly is one of the largest online contact lens retailers in North America, and the largest seller of prescription eyeglasses online in the world.
Zenni Optical is an American online retailer of prescription glasses and sunglasses. Founded in 2003 by Tibor Laczay and Julia Zhen, it is based in Novato, California.
EssilorLuxottica SA is a Franco-Italian vertically integrated multinational holding company registered in Charenton-Le-Pont and headquartered in nearby Paris and Milan. It designs, produces and markets ophthalmic lenses, equipment and instruments, prescription glasses and sunglasses. It was founded on 1 October 2018 and its name is an amalgamation of the two major corporations which merged to create it; the French Essilor and the Italian Luxottica. The two companies have, since the merger, been restructured as subsidiaries of the new entity.
Bailey Nelson is an Australian multinational optical retail chain, which operates mainly in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Bailey Nelson is, as of 2021, a privately held company.
