Persol for the Olivetti Foundation: stories of ‘Made in Italy’ fashion
Two stories of Piedmontese entrepreneurship come together in a special capsule collection. Creative director Pozzoli says: “More collaborations are on the way to showcase Italian excellence.”
Nine years after the opening in Ivrea of Italy’s first typewriter factory – a project spearheaded by engineer Camillo Olivetti, which would go on to shape one of the richest and most fascinating stories in Italian industry – in Via Po, Turin, optician and photographer Giuseppe Ratti decided to create technical eyewear for aviators and sports pilots, founding his brand Persol, ‘for the sun’, now the flagship brand of the EssilorLuxottica group. These Piedmontese stories of enterprise, innovation and excellence have come together in a new capsule collection of prescription glasses and sunglasses designed by Persol in collaboration with the Olivetti Foundation, which has been preserving and promoting the legacy of the family and the company since 1962.
“The collaboration with the Olivetti Foundation marks another important stage in Persol’s evolution, which also involves working with some of the brands and companies that epitomise ‘Made in Italy’,” explains Riccardo Pozzoli, the brand’s creative director since 2023. “ Following our collaboration with Cassina last spring, we are already working on another project with a very important brand, which we will unveil in 2027 as part of Persol’s 110th-anniversary celebrations. This connection with Italian excellence also extends to collaborations in other fields, such as cinema, with which Persol has a long-standing link (one of its iconic models, the 714, was made famous by Steve McQueen in *The Thomas Crown Affair*, and the 649 by Marcello Mastroianni in *Divorce Italian Style*, ed.), and through cultural events such as the Strega Prize, for which we have designed a special edition of glasses for the first time this year. Underpinning this strategy is also Persol’s deep-rooted artisanal spirit, an expression of the craftsmanship that has made authentic ‘Made in Italy’ so renowned. Suffice it to say that 70 per cent of the production of a pair of Persol glasses is carried out by hand; it can take up to 30 steps and at least two weeks – almost the same time as it takes to create a piece of haute couture.”
For weeks, Persol’s creative team has been working alongside that of the Olivetti Foundation (a visit to its headquarters in Ivrea is not to be missed) to study and draw inspiration from the Foundation’s immense technological, design and cultural heritage, which every year welcomes thousands of people from all over the world keen to learn about various aspects of the complex Olivetti project.
Thus, details such as the engraved metal bridge and the temple tips with rubber sleeves and contrasting red tips discreetly and effectively evoke elements of the legendary Lettera 22, Olivetti’s iconic typewriter, launched in 1950. The glasses are manufactured at the factory in Lauriano, 25 km north-east of Turin, which Persol opened in the 1970s; a village of around 1,400 inhabitants, where some 1,150 people have been working at the factory for generations.
Thanks to the high quality of its craftsmanship (to polish the frames, for example, the glasses are rotated for hours at a specific speed in special wooden barrels together with beech wood cubes, pumice and oil), EssilorLuxottica manufactures most of its finest eyewear there, including for licensed brands ranging from Prada to Dolce&Gabbana and Brunello Cucinelli, whilst awaiting new stories of authentic ‘Made in Italy’ craftsmanship to be transformed into wearable objects.
