2Jour Notes

Eyewear remains one of the few categories that manages to stay afloat in uncertain times. This is primarily due to its accessible price point for a broad audience.

Currently, there are three major players dominating the luxury eyewear market:

1) EssilorLuxottica

The company offers a comprehensive range of products: prescription glasses, sunglasses, contact lenses, and ophthalmic lenses. It represents both proprietary and licensed brands (including Prada, Miu Miu, Brunello Cucinelli, Chanel, Moncler, Ralph Lauren.

2) Kering Eyewear

Kering Eyewear, founded in 2014, was one of only two segments to show positive growth within the troubled Kering Group in 2024, recording +8% comparable change YoY (the other one is Bottega Veneta with +6%).

Upd: I had this post in my drafts for quite some time. Today, I received an email that 24S, which I mentioned in the context of personal shopping, is closing its concierge service. Following LVMH e-commerce journey, it’s clear to me that the group is struggling to master its online presence. Partially may be explained by scale, apart from that using obvious and general methods doesn’t work in luxury.

This applies not only to 24S, which I’m sure is dragging down the group’s performance, but also to the online presence of its most prominent brands — about some of the gaps I wrote before (here I’m referring to Fashion & Leather Goods, Perfumes & Beauty, and Selective Retailing, as I’m not entirely familiar with the other divisions).

Personal shopping: A luxury gap

In the latest edition of 2Jour Gazette, I wrote an extensive article on luxury sanctions in Russia. I…

Psychologically, when a person tries to take up more space, it’s often an attempt to assume a position of power and assert dominance. There’s even a term for it — manspreading: when a man (as it’s usually a man) sits with legs wide apart and takes up too much space on public transport.

The current Saint Laurent collection, according to SL creative director Anthony Vaccarello in Vogue Runway, “is about control, and power, in a way.” He deliberately stepped away from the overused “a tuxedo for a woman which was worn naked underneath” (overused, but still no-lose combination I must say). Instead, he offered his vision of something “more strict” — oversized tailoring styles with shirts and ties, very reminiscent of 1980s men’s fashion.

I often browse the brand’s official website — Saint Laurent remains one of my personal favorites in RTW. In the lookbook available there, the backstage photos…