The Face à Face eyewear brand has just turned 30, and is marking the milestone with bold new designs, creative collaborations and a renewed commitment to bolder and more expressive designs.
Few eyewear brands have shaped the Australian market’s appetite for colour, geometry and personality quite like Face à Face. For three decades, the Paris-born label has been a beacon for independent optical practices seeking frames that dare without alienating, innovate without compromising wearability, and bring artistic flair to beautiful eyewear.
In Australia, it has become a centrepiece of a premium offering thanks to Eyes Right Optical, the family-owned Australian distributor of Face à Face that has a long and successful 30-year relationship with the brand and Design Eyewear Group (DEG), which acquired the brand in 2014.
The Eyes Right Optical-DEG alliance involves several other brands too, brands known for giving independents an edge and diversity in their frames range.
In the case of Face à Face, the brand has become famous for beautiful colorways and adventurous styles. It’s avant-garde while remaining saleable for largely style-driven and boutique independents. The frames are all handmade in France, Italy and Japan, with a production and finishing centre in the French Jura region – a unique selling point.
In 2025, that legacy reached an important milestone: the brand’s 30-year anniversary.
Face à Face has been using the moment as a springboard, marking its evolution not by basking in nostalgia, but with fresh creativity and a symbolic re-launch dubbed “3.0”.
“What excites us most is that this isn’t a retrospective birthday,” says Ms Claire Ferreira, the designer and creative manager for Face à Face in its Paris studio. “It’s a moment to open a new chapter. We are taking the strong foundations we built, and pushing them forward.”
Founded in 1995, the Face à Face brand grew out of a passion for architecture shared by a small group of eyewear enthusiasts. Among them were Mr Pascal Jaulent and his partner Ms Nadine Roth, who sold the business to DEG in 2014, which now counts Face à Face among its brand portfolio.
The unique alliance between French style and flair (Face à Face) and Danish commercial acumen (DEG) gave the brand a second birth – and today it is distributed in more than 80 countries.
Ferreira says it’s been “three inspiring decades of creativity and passion”. To honour the brand’s evolution, Face à Face released FACES, a limited-edition sunglass concept. The design features two ‘Fs’ that face one another to represent both the brand’s foundations and its forward-thinking vision.
“This anniversary has been celebrated all year long, with festivities starting back in March with a party at LOFT in New York City where we presented the FACES concept,” she says.
“We collaborated with artist Jessica Poundstone on a global window campaign – displays, banners, counter cards, giveaways – and then celebrated with a beautiful party on a boat in front of the Eiffel Tower during SILMO Paris with our partners, manufacturers and customers.
“And the cherry on top: we received a SILMO d’Or as a birthday present.”
Together, it makes for a memorable 30th, with SILMO Paris – considered the world’s biggest optical trade event that takes place in September – considered a high point.
Ferreira was at the show where the brand also launched its F Collection. The F stands for festival, future, and France. This energy is felt throughout the new optical and sun collection.
Every model in the collection starts with the signature letter: Faces, Framed, Fold and Futur.
“We have always worked with an artistic and conceptual approach,” Ferreira says. “This year, it became more intuitive. We pushed our empirical approach with model-making, not to stick to what our brain thinks – but always being open to new ideas experimentation brings – that’s serendipity. We work closely to our feelings, emotions, more spontaneously.
“People will find the collection is freer, bolder and more expressive.”
Face à Face boundary-pushing efforts were perhaps best recognised through the coveted SILMO d’Or awards. This was for the Sunglass – Eyewear Design category, with its FLARE model.
“FLARE perfectly embodies this new creative direction. It plays with ‘perfect imbalance’ – a radical design with controlled asymmetry that still feels natural,” Ferreira says.
“Like a sunbeam, the shades cut across the frame, blurring the boundary between lens and acetate. Through a sophisticated lamination process, our exclusive striped acetate creates an Op’Art effect, with horizontal and vertical lines interacting inside an iconic rectangular shape.”
Comfort or adventure
During Paris Design Week – shortly before SILMO – Face à Face unveiled a special collaboration with designer Mr Valentin Lebigot, who created an artistic installation in the brand’s DEGree concept store in the heart of Paris. He staged 3D printed objects in unexpected positions, creating interplays of shapes and colours to highlight Face à Face’s new sun collection.
“It was amazing to see,” Ferreira says. “Showing one frame at a time, giving it space to breathe, creating a micro-environment around it – sometimes matching colours, sometimes contrasting.”
While the bright lights of Paris may seem a world away for Australian independents, there was a little lesson for frame display curation.
“It works very well to keep it simple and not try to showcase too much, instead it’s better to have a harmonious window with a couple of well-displayed frames to attract the eye,” Ferreira says.
So, what comes next?
With three decades behind it, Face à Face will continue to forge its own path. According to Ferreira, two main consumer trends are emerging.
“There is a desire for reassurance – something calming, comforting, homely,” she says. “And there is also the opposite: a wish to discover, to have fun, to choose something different and refreshing, outside the everyday path.
“I see Face à Face being even more surprising and upfront. With lots of exciting new projects and collaborations.”
Eyes Right Optical has played a pivotal role in building Face à Face’s strong Australian presence and following, positioning it among the most distinctive and in-demand brands in the independent market.
For many practices, Face à Face is bridging the gap between avant garde eyewear and everyday luxury while still pushing creative boundaries.
As Face à Face steps into its “3.0” era, DEG will continue paying homage to the brand’s essence that Jaulent and Roth devised three decades ago, while taking the brand to exciting and unexplored places.
Ferreira says the brand’s future will continue to be powered by its community of independent optical practices and wearers worldwide, including Australia.
“We are very thankful for Australia’s passion for Face a Face,” she says. “You bring such a strong eye for beautiful design and a joyful spirit to eyewear. We hope to keep surprising you for the next 30 years – and beyond.”
