Viewpoint: Diary of a spectacle designer

This December I’m determined not to look back at the year gone by, but to the future instead. I admit that this will be somewhat difficult given the effects of the pandemic are still raging around us. Covid-19 has changed the world, but with that change comes opportunity for some and, sadly, failure for those who don’t adapt.

One thing I’ve learned in my 19 years in business is that the eyewear industry is slow to adapt and change with the times. I read about other sectors of the economy and their talk of rapid evolution due to the pandemic and I thought about our evolution. It seems to me that the businesses surviving and thriving are the ones innovating and changing at breakneck speed. When the pandemic hit, half of us stuck a white bit of paper in the window saying, ‘Closed due to cornonavirus’, then ripped it off and reopened as if nothing had happened several months later – me included.