Face à Face is inspired by discoveries within architecture and product design. The designers play with colours, details, light, high quality materials, contrasts, volumes and geometry. Emphasis is placed on research and development because the designers consider it essential to understand the function and use of the product they are designing.
“The presence of the detail, concealed or highlighted by the colour or by irregularities in the material, is the emblem of a design which is not constructed on eccentricity but draws its strength from the concrete form of the balanced, but avant-garde lines,” say founders and designers, Pascal Jaulent and Nadine Roth.
Face à Face continue their innovative approach to eyewear design. This runs in parallel with the current trends in other disciplines of design.
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“Face à face eyewear is designed for innovative, active, urban men and women, who consider their frame as an important part of their look and creative personality. The Face à face client will not wear elaborate, outrageous glasses. They seek designs that focus on function, quality material and beauty stripped of superfluous detail.”
The Face à Face style is very recognisable. Face à Face has a creative philosophy based on architectural design as its source of inspiration, research of function, graphic inf luences, duality, beauty and make-up, colours and fashion. Face à Face eyewear is a unique blend of fashion and design, revealing the eyes through the frame.
Match Made in Design Heaven
In 1995 Pascal Jaulent and Nadine Roth formed the Paris-based company, ‘Architectures’ – based on their common passion for contemporary architecture. Their mission was to adhere to design standards that balanced form and function, while exploring the interplay of shape and material and finding well-designed solutions to real-life problems.
Out of this association, in the same year, they created Face à Face, a high quality eyewear collection that is individual, contemporary, sophisticated and very technical. The partners brought to the mix have very different competencies. Pascal Jaulent, creator of the collection’s original concept, dreamed of giving eyewear the power to express the wearer. Nadine Roth, his associate, brought her artistic passion and international marketing expertise to the mix.
Manufacturing
Located near Lons le Saunier, in the Jura Mountains (considered to be the heart of French eyewear tradition and industry), Face à Face frames are not mass produced. Most are still handmade by the Face à Face production facility and by the finest local French craftsmen and sub- contractors, who combine artistic skills with mastery of technological innovations.
This dedication to tradition and handcrafting has become a real luxury, in an era marked by the closing down of numerous factories in France and in Europe. For this reason, some of the titanium pieces in their collections are now manufactured in Japan and Italy. However, all other manufacturing and finishing processes remain in France.
The high number of handmade operations involved to make Face à Face frames gives a specific character to each piece, becoming a personal object and very recognisable.
The long time-frame required for the different manufacturing steps is therefore unavoidable, but necessary to offer these unique products of the highest quality. The various steps between initial drawings, model prototypes and the first run of the final production can involve between two and ten different sub-contractors depending on what material is used, and can take from six to 24 months.
The Face à Face Customer
Face à Face’s appeal is in their design philosophy and their respect for the individual’s personality. The eyewear is designed for innovative, active, urban men and women, who consider their frame as an important part of their look and creative personality. The face à face client will not wear elaborate, outrageous glasses. They seek designs that focus on function, material and beauty stripped of superf luous detail.
Face à Face Optical Collection
Each collection is preceded by a lengthy research and design stage. resulting in new styles enhanced by innovative concepts, incorporating new sensibilities whilst remaining true to the brand’s core concepts.
Offering minimalist designs, temples with asymmetrical volumes and multi- facets characterising the latest metals. By incorporating natural tones with splashes of bright colour the designers choose to reveal or conceal in layers and rivets. Translucent acetates, combined with metal or titanium, reveals the usually hidden details of construction.
For more information on Face a Face, contact Eyes Right Optical on (AUS) 1800 637 654 or email: [email protected].
