It’s widely known that luxury goods made in Italy are of the finest quality. So it’s no surprise that our newest frame collection is handmade at an atelier in Mirano, a small village near Venice.
Piero Massaro wanted to bring a pure Italian product to the market that focused on craftsmanship and quality, while also allowing his creativity as a designer to sing. He launched his namesake collection in 2003 and has been fastidiously curating and producing the collection ever since.
Massaro began creating eyewear in 2003, drawing inspiration from his homeland of Italy. Now, the brand is made up of three separate collections. Piero Massaro, the main collection, can be found at Eclectic Eye. The Italian-based brand offers a children’s line, piccolo p., and Diciotto, that includes simple designs.
The process to achieve Massaro perfection is an intimate one and requires patience and precision. All of the design and production are done in-house by a small, experienced team of crafters. The team only constructs 100 of each piece, and each frame takes 100 steps to complete. Micro-production allows the craftsmen to create more intricate designs that would otherwise be too labor-intensive and wasteful of refined materials.
The brand features an innovative, patented “bayonet-zip” temple. A special mechanism attaches the temples to the frame front which allows for easier repairs or replacements for opticians. Piero Massaro designed the mechanism to assist with the fit (“spring hinge”) and the temple is made to fit more like a skull temple.
The Piero Massaro collection features custom-made cellulose acetate (rhodoid) from Muzzucchelli. Most acetates are then layered and pressed to create an even more custom design. The Massaro team adds their own masterful twist and tumbles the acetate in birch wood to achieve the final finish. The majority of the Piero Massaro collection is acetate, but they do have a few stainless steel and titanium pieces.
Each collection released under the Piero Massaro brand has a unique theme. Past collections include mosaic, cubic, nature, patchwork, pixel, numeric, vertical gardens. The vertical gardens collection features a custom layered acetate created from actual images of flowers (images stretched out and layered into acetate to achieve organic colors). Piero’s attention to detail doesn’t stop at his frames, the eyewear cases are made of the same Italian leather used to manufacture Hermes bags and come in many bright, buttery colors.
The Piero Massaro line encapsulates elevated design and is certain to delight any eyewear aficionado.
