Eyewear, once relegated to the accessory section of fashion brands, is now taking center stage.
In March last year, Brunello Cucinelli hosted a special event at Rome’s Villa Aurelia at dusk to unveil its eyewear collection in collaboration with EssilorLuxottica. By year-end, Italian footwear brand Ferragamo followed suit, launching its own eyewear line in Beverly Hills.
This February, outdoor brand Canada Goose entered the eyewear arena with its first optical collection. Around the same time, Moncler held a launch event for its Moncler Lunettes collection in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana.
Luxury fashion houses are no longer content with merely having an eyewear line—they are now approaching eyewear as a core product category worthy of dedicated budgets, creative narratives, and strategic focus. Eyewear is no longer a passive add-on, but a full-fledged expression of brand identity and design language.
In fact, as the luxury sector faces a broader market downturn, eyewear has emerged as one of the most natural and seamless avenues for brand expansion.
So what makes the eyewear business so appealing to luxury brands?
Eyewear has long been a solid and dependable business. According to research from Research and Markets, the global luxury eyewear market is projected to grow from $34.76 billion in 2024 to $40.84 billion by 2030. At a time when many segments of the luxury industry are experiencing a slowdown, eyewear remains one of the few categories still showing steady, resilient growth.
More importantly, eyewear isn’t just “stable”—its nature fundamentally sets it apart from most fashion accessories.
For billions of consumers around the world, eyewear is not a discretionary item—it’s closer to a daily necessity. Whether it’s for vision correction, protection, or sun shielding, its core functions cannot be easily replaced. This gives eyewear a rare dual identity in the luxury world: both functional and brand-driven. It fulfills essential needs while also serving as a canvas for brand aesthetics, design language, and symbolic expression. This unique positioning has led to a revaluation of eyewear during downturns, making it a key focus for luxury brands.
In terms of market structure, while the eyewear industry includes various subcategories—such as optical lenses, contact lenses, and reading glasses—the segments most closely tied to luxury branding are optical frames and sunglasses. Together, these two categories account for nearly 50% of the market, and are also the most brandable, design-oriented, and style-driven products within the space.
Eyewear also stands out as one of the few “high-margin, low-complexity” categories in the fashion industry. Gross margins typically range from 60% to 70%, and with brand premiums, retail margins for luxury eyewear can reach as high as 70% to 80%. In today’s market climate, this helps offset rising costs and maintain profitability.
That said, the reason luxury brands are investing more heavily in eyewear isn’t because it delivers rapid scale—it’s because of its strategic value and long-term stability. When the industry enters a downturn, the key challenge shifts from simply making money to ensuring continued relevance. In an environment of cooling demand and growing caution, brands need product lines that maintain daily visibility and increase consumer touchpoints—rather than high-risk, unproven growth narratives that require heavy investment.
眼镜行业品类/地区概览（Essiloruxiottica 2024 Universal Registration Document）
Eyewear offers exactly the kind of certainty brands need: it’s immune to seasonal fluctuations, benefits from a lightweight supply chain, enjoys steady consumer demand, and serves as a powerful carrier of brand identity—maintaining a consistent presence in consumers’ daily lives.
While it may not deliver explosive profit growth, in today’s luxury market, eyewear is undoubtedly one of the most worthwhile product lines to invest in. It’s low-volatility, easy to manage, and beyond reinforcing brand value, it also provides sustainable commercial returns.
