The Big Optometry Blog: How Tom Davies moved production from China to UK

At that point, I was 28 years old. A backpacking holiday to the Far East had turned into a three-year adventure. Fresh from arts school, I’d ended up working in Hong Kong for a watchmaker who began his own eyewear company and appointed me chief designer. So I’d developed some knowledge of how to design products but, at that stage, knew very little about running a business.

I’d spent two years already in London designing ready-to-wear eyewear for other brands but wanted to launch my own bespoke service. I found that people generally didn’t like glasses because they didn’t fit properly or negatively changed the way they looked. This is totally unnecessary. Glasses, I knew, could be worn as an accessory. I always had big ambitions and felt building a global sales team and brand was challenge enough. Building a factory would have to wait.