Gertrude Nakiiwu

GLASSING

Glassing is nearly born for fun in Ibiza during summer 2010, from an idea of two young Italian guys, Alessandro Forte and Stefano Ottone. The two lifelong friends land on the island provided only with their initiative, creativity and the typical recklessness of their age. Overwhelmed by Ibiza's beauty, music and hippie style they quickly decide to stay there and open a store selling vintage glasses, their great passion. From the store to a real brand it's a short step. They soon choose to dare producing thousands of multi-colored sunglasses, with the brilliant idea to sell them through automatic distributors inside of clubs. The success is enthusiastic, that summer Glassing sells only on the island more than 20.000 glasses, crowding all the beaches and the discos. From then on Alessandro and Stefano show to grow up, collection after collection, as designers but also as entrepeneurs. They quickly emerge for their will to experiment and to create cutting edge glasses, taking advange of the Italian expertise. They focus on innovative materials often combined in unusual ways, believe in young designers and their courage, while trust the knowledge of the best Italian factories for the production and for the uniqueness of the handmade manufacture. The brand is currently distributed in more than 1500 selected optical stores in the world and in some luxury boutiques and department stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Holt Renfrew, Excelsior, Galeries LaFayette, Twist. Glassing has also four flagship stores in Italy (Milan, Portofino, Taormina and Capri), an outlet and a Yacht Store, a real yacht completely customized according to the brand's image and designated to be a shop, the first floating optical store ever. In 2016 more openings are expected out of Italy, in fact Glassing is launching a series of pop-up stores in Dubai, in advance of the flagship store officially opening in October 2016, and is planning its own international retail network.