Fairy-tale ending in New York’s Javits Center
New York City has played host to Vision Expo for nearly 40 years and has become a mainstay in the international optical tradeshow calendar in more recent years thanks to the Javits Center location in Manhattan.
But all good things must come to an end and in October 2023, joint organisers RX Global and the Vision Council of America announced that from 2025, Vision Expo East would be held at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.
Those who remember the relocation of Silmo and Mido from their city centre locations will tell you that those events never really recaptured their spirit at the new, soulless event venues on the outskirts of their respective cities.
Which makes the decision to relocate an established trade show, held in the centre of what is commonly thought of as one of the world’s most exciting cities, to another part of the country, quite hard to fathom for many.
In order to get more insight into the decision, Optician sat down with Vision Council CEO Ashley Mills at the event. Mills tells Optician that helping exhibitors deliver return on investment was the driving factor behind the move to Orlando: ‘We’ve been hearing from our customers for well over five years, even before Covid, that they cannot deliver their full brand experience here at the Javits,’ she says.
Several cost factors were highlighted by Mills, including the expensive food and beverages, drayage logistics and the unionised nature of Javits Center contractors, which prohibits exhibitors from undertaking work during the building of their stands.
‘We also have flexibility around another really big pain point for our exhibitors, which was the date pattern itself,’ says Mills. ‘They don’t want to be here on Sunday, and the Javits Centre would not move. It wouldn’t budge. They would not let us do a Thursday, Friday, Saturday show, like we do in Las Vegas for Expo West.
‘People are done on Saturday. They can either chill out, they can spend the day decompressing Sunday, or they can go home, but nobody wants to be breaking stands down on Sunday night until midnight.’
Mills adds that a rather unexpected reason became evident in a piece of research recently conducted by RX Global, which operates more than 300 events around the world. ‘The number one reason people aren’t going to trade shows anymore, which we all assumed would be the expense of taking time away from a business or paying to take staff, was fear and safety.
‘The data listed several cities, that women in particular, are simply not safe, and women will not go to a trade show if they don’t feel safe. I’m not here to bash New York, but we know people feel very safe in Orlando and we had an opportunity to rebuild a show and give people exactly what they were asking for.’
Looking ahead to the event next February, Mills predicts there will be a different feel and spirit to Vision Expo East in 2025. ‘Just by virtue of where the event will be held, all of our attendees will be in one place, so you will not be scattered across New York City stuck in a cab for an hour.
Everyone will be together and you can walk from several hotels into the event, which is convenient, but it also means that when you walk out of the event, we’ll be having a huge party. And when you go to the hotel bar, everyone will be there, and it will feel much more like a campus.’
Breakout technology
Aside from fashion trends, Vision Expo East has been a good event to keep abreast of new technology. Optician has uncovered emerging disruptive technology at the event in recent years, including online refraction and remote eye testing, both of which are now finding their feet in Europe and the UK, respectively.
This year’s technology highlights were more on the wearable side, with notable new products from EssilorLuxottica and Deep Optics.
Fresh from an appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, EssilorLuxottica presented its Nuance Audio Glasses (pictured right) to an American optical trade audience for the first time.
The glasses, which feature built-in audio amplification for the wearer, are designed to cater for people with mild to moderate hearing loss, many of whom might not realise they need assistance, or simply do not want to deal with the stigma of wearing a hearing aid.
World Health Organization research estimates there are more than 400m in the world that would benefit from additional help with their hearing, yet fewer than 68m actually wear them. EssilorLuxottica is looking to capitalise on the 83% coverage gap with a product that offers virtually indistinguishable hearing aid technology that can be purchased over the counter – at least in the US.
Optician had an opportunity to try the Nuance glasses at Vision Expo, and while the noisy environment of a trade show with loud music and voices coming from all directions was not the optimal testing ground, it did provide the device with a stern test. In use, the glasses deal with those audio obstacles impeccably, thanks to directional AI technology that isolates voices coming from in front of the wearer and reducing sounds coming from other directions.
This comes into its own when trying to hold a conversation with someone in a noisy environment. I was able to have conversations with other people on the EssilorLuxottica booth with no issues and with clear audio. Impressively, the audio amplification decreased the closer I got to the other individual, resulting in a more natural conversational experience.
I was aware of my own voice slightly more than usual, but I’m told this phenomenon is also true of hearing aids. The beauty of a software approach is that this element can be developed and rolled out in a future update. I wasn’t particularly taken with any of the frame shapes, but I am an eyewear enthusiast and the vast majority of target users will not feel the same way.
Although prices have not been finalised, EssilorLuxottica expects the product to start at $1,100 (£1,034). Given my quick test, this does not seem excessive for a product that can manage two sensory problems simultaneously.
Elsewhere at the event, Deep Optics premiered what it said was the world’s first electronic sunglass in the shape of 32°N (pictured right). At the heart of the sunglass is tuneable liquid crystal that changes state when charged with electric current. This state change is activated by a simple swipe of the user’s finger along a sensor embedded in the temple.
In use, the pixels within the lens rearrange instantaneously, to specs that are set up during calibration using an app. What I found most useful was the ability to create reading distance scenarios that could be activated by a pre-set swiping gesture on the temples.
Compared to Nuance Audio, the likely target market is a little narrow. The product is for patients who use off-the-shelf reading glasses, with a reading addition of between +0.5D and +2.5D and wear plano sunglasses.
New and old faces
American brand Vada Eyewear has quietly been making moves at the last couple of Expo events in Manhattan and has notably been one of the emerging brands to watch. Vada Eyewear was created in 2020 by founder Katie Caplener, a jewellery designer based in Austin, Texas.
The transition from jewellery to eyewear might not seem straightforward on the face of it, but Caplener says her eye for antiques was not limited to one type in particular, and while picking up jewellery at flea markets, vintage eyewear would often be picked up at the same time.
Caplener’s career got started as a fashion designer in large retailer, but she says the production line nature of the business did not fit with her timeless sensibilities. She took a job in jewellery retail but her own collection of antique pieces kept catching the eye of customers, who wanted to know how to buy items for themselves. She says: ‘Finally the owner said, “People keep asking you about that jewellery. Can you find more?” I said, “Well, not these exact ones, but I’ll go source some stuff.”
‘I put together a collection for the store and it went really well, and then the owner kind of pushed me to do it more. I was working full time for her and moonlighted the jewellery under the name Beta. That was 2013, then after that I started designing my own jewellery, all inspired by vintage antique heirloom pieces. I think I released six or seven styles working with a jeweller in Austin. She’s still with me today, 11 years later, as our full-time jewellery director.’
The catalyst for the move into designing frames came in 2018 after a conversation with a friend that was coming back into the eyewear business after a spell in interior design. ‘She asked if I would ever make a frame and I just said, “yes, of course.”’ With her friend, Alexis Sepkovic, Caplener delved into the eyewear archive that she had curated to look for inspiration and came up with their first design, Siren.
Having worked on launching an independent eyewear brand that manufactures in Japan, it was the logical place to start, but there were some unforeseen problems. Much of the older generations in Japan can have antiquated attitudes towards women, especially in business, which Caplener discovered while searching for a factory. The workaround involved pretending her then boyfriend was the company owner, and the factory agreed to produce a run of 400 styles in deadstock Takiron acetate.
‘We were just going to make the 400 pairs and sell them to my existing jewellery customers. That was kind of the plan. But then Alexis started showing it to her old eyewear industry buddies and their feedback was really good. We made some optical styles and we showed Gary Black from Black Optical, and he was like “oh, I’ll take all of them in every colour.”
‘I couldn’t believe it, we were suddenly wholesaling. It has really snowballed from there and now we’re in a position where we have a licensed optician in our store and we set up an on-site lab last summer to allow us to fulfil prescription orders,’ says Caplener.
Much like Vada Jewellery, Vada’s eyewear has both antique and contemporary influences. Trends are on the brand’s radar, but the overall aim is to produce frames that stand out from anything on practice shelves.
The silhouettes range from twists on classic shapes like the Ozark aviator to the gem-inspired Siren, which remains Vada’s best seller, says Caplener. New style Futuro is perhaps the boldest Vada style yet, with a slim oval shape housed within a larger square frame.
Limited runs of acetate in deadstock colours helps elevate the timelessness, with extensive combinations of hues for the frame and wash tint lenses. Jewellery elements can be found on each frame, with gold-plated temple core wires with Greek-style engraving and plated monogram rivets for the brand’s frame chain retainers, which are naturally full of opulence and heirloom style.
While Vada Eyewear is a new name on the eyewear scene, Erkers 1879 is one of oldest. Based in St Louis, Erkers 1879 has been part of the optical industry for over 145 years, after its founder, AP Erker, moved from Germany to chase ‘the American dream’.
In the beginning, the company was known for making anything that used a lens and was a photography partner to the World’s Fair in St Louis in 1904. Latterly, the company has focused its expertise and craft on premium eyewear and is now run by the fifth generation of Erkers, Jack III and Tony Erker.
This season, 12 new styles have been added to the AP Collection, which is inspired by company founder Adolf P Erker. Of the new shapes, seven have been created using hand-polished acetate with a custom metal wire core throughout the temple, while the remaining are created using stainless steel fronts and titanium temples.
All acetate colour graduations were custom designed in house by the Erkers themselves, with 11 new blends in the spring release. Like all acetate frames from the brand, a custom German hinge with genuine steel rivets joins the front and temple, featuring subtle bevelling and 1879 etching.
The new metal styles are defined by a polarised palette of neutral tones and bright hues, with three feminine silhouettes, a unisex aviator and one round eye shape.
- Vision Expo East 2025 will take place at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida from February 19-22.