Since he is a man very strongly associated with sunglass design, it comes as something of a surprise that when Bruno Palmegiani, creative director of Police, first entered the Italian optical industry 45 years ago it was in a role selling lenses for Essilor. Like most opportunities that have been presented to him over the years, Palmegiani seized it with both hands.
'A friend of my mother's worked for Essilor and managed to set up an interview for me with the managing director. I was there for eight years at Essilor, selling the lenses but also learning all the processes involved in manufacturing them and the special qualities of the different lenses available.'
Palmegiani already had a long-standing love for sunglasses through his experiences as a rock musician. 'I was passionate about sunglasses and the image they could help project - when I was a guitar player I wore sunglasses as part of my image. So when I heard that [frame company] De Rigo was hiring for sales people at this time, I decided to join.'
After establishing himself as a top salesman at De Rigo, the next opportunity came for Palmegiani when the sunglass designer unexpectedly left the company. 'As a frames salesman I needed good sunglasses to sell so I took the decision to design them myself. At this point I had also studied optometry and opened my own store in Rome - I was very busy as a young man. I understood the sale to the public, the sale to the optician and also the science behind the lenses and eye care. My sense of style was developed through my experiences in music and family members in the fashion business.'
At this time, Palmegiani recalls, the Italian sunglass market tended to be dominated by a craze among consumers for a particular frame or brand, which would sell very heavily for a couple of years before being superseded by the next hot product.
'The most popular sunglass in the early 1980s was a Persol model. As this trend began to subside, I realised a big gap in the market was opening. When there is a space you have to react immediately and I didn't have the time to think about an original design so I took a pair of old Ray-Ban Wayfarers that they did not produce any more and used that as the basis - although we changed many of the design elements significantly.'
The new brand was named Police in homage to the spare Wayfarer frames that Ray-Ban had given to the New York Police department a few years earlier and the link to America was further developed through the promotion material.
'In the early 1980s the idea of the American dream meant a lot to young people in Italy, mainly through the movies. For the main advertising poster I took a photograph of two people in a Cadillac in front of a backdrop of the skyscrapers in New York. Because I had very good relations with all the sunglass sales places in Rome, in one week the poster was everywhere, grabbing the attention of young people looking for the next big thing. The quality of the product was good and we positioned it cheaper than Persol to give younger people the chance to buy it.'
After spreading the Police brand to other Italian cities, the international trade show Mido, held annually in Milan, played a key role in allowing Palmegiani to effectively export the brand abroad.
'Back then many international visitors would fly into Rome before going on to Milan and during their time in Rome they were bombarded with the popularity of Police there. So before they were even at the show, buyers from all over the world wanted Police. The only decision for us at the show was to decide who to give the brand to!'
Having built the brand up from scratch, Palmegiani then concentrated on keeping it fashionable, first through recognising the latest fashion trends among young people and later through the deployment of high profile brand ambassadors like George Clooney and David Beckham.
'I would develop prototypes and took them out to nightclubs for young people to try out and comment on. The real work is picking up the ideas and tastes of people that are different to yourself. The brand ambassadors have helped shaped the brand in the public's imagination - the best example being David Beckham symbolising the shift to more metrosexual designs for men.'
Recognising the huge impact the economic crisis has had on consumer behaviour, Palmegiani has recently steered the brand to a more functional and less ornamental identity. The famous brand ambassadors have been dropped in favour of unknown models and the latest collection is a revisit to the brand's blue lens sunglasses, which were hugely popular in the early 1990s.
'We feel that providing a high quality lens offers something of real value to people in a way that decorative design elements cannot. Police still has its strong identity but we are moving it in a more minimalist direction. The updated blue lens sunglasses are the result of looking to the past to see what will be popular now.' ?