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Among the Italic populations, the Ver Sacrum ritual coincided with the beginning of spring and required that fathers send their children to leave to found other communities. An invitation to new beginnings, to think about a distant future, which falls on the day chosen by Brunello Cucinelli and EssilorLuxottica to officially present the first eyewear collection, the result of their collaboration signed in November 2022. An agreement that was a natural continuation and enrichment of what in 2021 had linked Cucinelli to Oliver Peoples, also a brand of the Franco-Venetian group and which had been the first license in 40 years of activity of the Umbrian company.
«When we signed the initial agreement with me and Leonardo Del Vecchio, our children were also there – says Cucinelli, emotionally remembering the entrepreneur and friend, who passed away in June 2022 -. We wanted to establish a collaboration between our companies that would not last a few years, as usually happens with licenses, but which could potentially extend for many decades.” A meeting and a dialogue based on the profound values of the two realities: «There have been many exchanges between our teams, between Umbria, Agordo (historical headquarters of Luxottica, ed.) and Milan, and in our factories, thought of as beautiful environments that promote beauty. There is a branch of genetics called “dynamic epigenetics”: it studies how the conditions of the context in which we live can stimulate or repress a complete expression of each person’s genetic heritage. In summary, dynamic epigenetics can scientifically measure the impact that what surrounds us, and is almost never taken into consideration, has on our DNA and on our well-being: like the sight of a panorama, a beautiful work environment or a window – explains the entrepreneur –. Leonardo always said that our factories must be beautiful. I myself, once, visiting the Agordo factory nestled in the mountains, suggested doing an experiment, that is, replacing some walls with glass, to let in the view. Following this very intense dialogue that existed between us, they did so. And today people work while admiring the outside. Once again, an idea that binds us, that we must work in environments rich in beauty and, last but not least, with the right remuneration”.
Five collections for fourteen models, distributed in a price range between 600 and 1,200 euros: they are the first result of this meeting, sunglasses and for the first time also optical glasses, which interpret gentle luxury according to Cucinelli both in the materials of excellence both through the best Made in Italy techniques: here are the glasses in horn, metal, acetate, Japanese titanium, the lenses in shades of champagne, pistachio, pomace and peach, the precious details in the Gemmae women’s collection, the motifs of the architecture and the coat of arms of Solomeo, Cucinelli’s manufacturing village, which return in the frames of the Stemma models. «The lightness of titanium recalls that of our clothing – Cucinelli further notes –. But glasses are an even more special accessory because they are part of our face.”
Another non-random choice was to organize the presentation of the eyewear collection in Rome with an evening in the seventeenth-century Villa Aurelia, on the top of the Janiculum: «A tribute to the city of Emperor Hadrian», underlines Cucinelli, who was inspired by to the monarch-philosopher when he launched the Universal Library project in Solomeo, one of many in the pipeline for the Umbrian company which closed 2023 with growth of almost 24% and exceeding one billion euros in revenues for the first time.