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June 07, 2019 11:22 AM

Illinois startup brings eyeglass frame manufacturing into focus

H. Lee Murphy
Crain's Chicago Business
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    State Optical Shapiro
    Crain's Chicago Business

    Scott Shapiro and his partners are making acetate eyeglass frames in the Chicago suburbs.

    When many industries globalized in the 1980s, the American makers of eyeglasses got pummeled from two directions: The Italians were better at fashion, and the Chinese could copy just about any design and produce it cheaper than anybody.

    Hallowed names like Bausch & Lomb, American Optical and ArtCraft all hit the skids in the years that followed.

    Today the surviving makers of eyewear in the U.S. can be counted on one hand. But the biggest of all, State Optical Co., is just five years old and based in Vernon Hills, Ill., where a partnership of four headed by CEO Scott Shapiro is churning out high-quality acetate frames in a 20,000-square-foot plant where 65 people are employed.

    Riverwoods, Ill., resident Shapiro, 39, learned the business as an importer of frames from both Asia and Italy under the Europa name, which he continues to operate with partner Jerry Wolowicz.

    "I got the idea to go beyond importing and start a collection of made-in-the-U.S. frames," Shapiro says. "However, I found there was [almost] no manufacturing infrastructure left in America."

    Then he met Marc Franchi and Jason Stanley, who had a small boutique frame-making business in suburban San Francisco. Together they found a veteran designer, Blake Kuwahara, based in California, and then traveled to Italy and Germany to find machinery. Franchi and Stanley relocated to the Chicago area, where Shapiro was living and working. They hired a dozen workers, and everybody learned the craft, which can take 50 steps by hand to produce a single frame, on the job.

    "We had big crates of machinery coming from overseas, and there were no instructions in English on how to use any of it, because it had been years since anybody speaking English had bought this kind of equipment," Shapiro says. "Marc went out and interviewed people in the industry to find out what we had to do. We advertised for workers with the slogan that we were bringing an industry back to America."

    State Optical Co.
    State Optical imported machines from Italy and trained its own workforce to produce acetate frames at its manufacturing facility near Chicago.

    Most of State Optical's eyeglass frames are priced at $350 at retail and come in classic horn-rim styles — there are no licensed designer names, though a lower-priced line called J. Alan priced under $250 was launched late in 2018 and the company is laying plans to start producing metal frames. Revenue was close to $5 million last year, with a customer list of 1,200 optical retailers.

    State Optical has already surpassed the industry's granddaddy, Shuron in Greenville, S.C., which has been making eyeglasses since the Civil War ended. Charles Whitehill, the 82-year-old owner of Shuron, says U.S. eyewear is poised for a comeback.

    "Today people want products made in the USA. We've got customers from Canada and Japan and all over coming to us to make American products for them," Whitehill said. "We can't keep up with the orders. I get five or six requests a week these days from overseas. Three years ago I was lucky to get one call a month like that."

    Still, there are continuing challenges for Shapiro and his group at State Optical, not the least of which is Warby Parker, which imports its frames from Asia and has disrupted the industry through its mostly internet-only sales model.

    What's more, State's acetate comes from Italy. Its hinges are made in Germany.

    "We need more American suppliers of component parts," Shapiro says.

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