In a market with far too many brands, we could wait for the moment that companies would start offering their brands to discounting chains or even sell them theirselves. Of course chains already offered branded eyewear but the trend seems to be companies now really choose for cooperations. Discount chain Hans Anders at the Netherlands just announced that it will start to sell its first branded eyewear by DKNY (Luxottica), Pierre Cardin (Safilo), Kenzo and Nina Ricci (both by L’Amy). Earlier already Marchon agreed to sell its new Kiss&Kill collection exclusively at Pearle Benelux. Converse (Click Company) changed from independent opticians to Het Huis and the small salon show of Custo Barcelona (Fashion Frames) at the Amsterdam Fashion Week will be sponsored by Eyes&More. Earlier this week we reported about the opening of Sunglass Hut stores at Dutch department store De Bijenkorf where Luxottica will primarily sell its own sunglasses collections. New and predictable developments as all these collections can’t be sold at a shrinking amount of independent opticians. But also a warning sign and encouragement for independents to carefully check their collections and built them in a proper way to face an ever growing competition.
