Steve

Here before it's everywhere.

Optician since 2000

A family story, written in acetate.

It all started with my father. He was a frame maker who built frames from start to finish, almost always in acetate. He worked for Mikli, then for Vito. One day he knocked on the door of a great name in French optics, which had just opened its first Paris shop on rue de Rivoli. He had no diploma, but he had drive. They took him under their wing, he learned everything on the job, and he went on to lead the brand's store openings across France.

My older brother became an optician. I followed the same path: from the age of 16 at the Lycée Fresnel, in the F10 optics programme, then the BTS Opticien-Lunetier at ISO in Paris, in 1999-2000. Along the way, I ran quality control on anti-reflective coatings in a lens factory in Boulogne. Then came several years on the Champs-Élysées, in a prestigious store, where I co-managed a team of around twenty. That is where I met my wife.

In 2006 I took over Optique du Bois, a Vincennes optician open since 1968.

Within a year I had turned to independent designers: Oliver Peoples, MYKITA and many more. My clients no longer had to go into Paris to find something different. Today they include well-known French artists and figures from the political world.

Just before the pandemic, I moved to Lisbon with my family. I spent years looking for the right neighbourhood: residential, lively, where Portuguese, French and international residents meet. I found it in Campo de Ourique, where I opened the shop in spring 2024.

Thirty years on, I still choose every frame, one by one.