Why luxury eyewear keeps coming back to Japan

In Tokyo’s Omotesando district, Jacques Marie Mage has plenty of room for buying a pair of glasses. Its gallery has walls and floors of Japanese cypress, a consultation room furnished with vintage rugs, and an upstairs bar with a painted screen dating to the late Edo period. There is ample encouragement to linger.

Shinichiro Ogata, whose design firm Simplicity worked on the interior, described the solid wood counter as a place for the customer to “converse quietly and slowly with the chosen frame.” The phrase appears in JMM’s account of the gallery, which opened in 2025. It gives an everyday purchase the attentiveness usually reserved for something commissioned.

The setting also argues for where the value lies. JMM designs its products in Los Angeles and has them made in Japan and Italy. Its first collection, launched in 2015, consisted of four acetate frame designs made in Japan. Japanese artistry was part of the proposition from the start.

For a traveler interested in beautiful objects, eyewear offers an unusually personal way into Japan. The object changes your appearance as soon as you put it on. Its less obvious qualities take longer to discover, especially the craftsmanship that lets something so small sit comfortably on your face for hours.

Japan’s depth of premium eyewear begins in Fukui Prefecture, on the Sea of Japan side of the country. According to the prefecture’s tourism authority, around 95 percent of frames made in Japan come from this region, with production concentrated in Fukui and Sabae cities. Behind the different names on the temples is a concentration of people who know how to make glasses.

HOW FUKUI LEARNED TO MAKE GLASSES

The industry began with a practical problem. Snow restricted agricultural work in winter, and local entrepreneur Gozaemon Masunaga wanted another income source for his community. In 1905, he brought skilled eyewear workers from Osaka and Tokyo to Fukui to help establish production.

Masunaga’s company history describes a workshop system in which experienced makers led teams and trained apprentices. Craftspeople who developed their skills could start their own businesses. Knowledge spread, and the region acquired the workshops and suppliers that made further production possible.

That history helps explain why so many labels can draw on the same place without producing the same glasses. A designer needs someone able to turn a drawing into a workable object, then repeat it reliably. In Fukui, supporting skills span different stages of manufacture. The prefecture describes a division of labor in which specialist factories handle particular processes.

Fukui organizes this expertise in different ways. Masunaga says it keeps frame manufacturing in-house, from design through completion. Elsewhere, firms work within the regional network. The useful common ground is the depth of technical knowledge available.

The region’s standing was also hard-won commercially. In his message for the 2016 Sabae Megane Messe, then Fukui Optical Association chairman Ichiro Kuroda described pressure from inexpensive imported frames and production well below its earlier peak. He looked to branding and technological development as part of the response.

That account adds a commercial explanation for Fukui’s premium reputation. Its makers had skills to build on and a reason to make their value recognizable. For the region’s own labels, a name customers could seek out mattered as much as the ability to manufacture for somebody else.

THE WORK INSIDE THE FRAME

Some of this expertise becomes visible once you know where to look. Turn a frame sideways. Follow the transition between its front and arms, called temples. Look at how the hinge is incorporated, and how a thick edge is shaped around the face. Those small decisions affect both the silhouette and the way the object feels in the hand.

The Sabae maker Oriens explains the sequence behind its UMEBACHI frames in a detailed production guide. Machinery forms and cuts the acetate; craftspeople then refine the joints and finish the surfaces. Barrel polishing does part of the work. Hand finishing reaches curves and corners that need more individual attention.

The same guide describes the repeated pressing and heat treatment used to make titanium components, followed by joining and finishing. A finished frame conceals much of that effort. What looks like a simple metal line has been shaped, thickened, and designed to meet at the joints.

This combination of machinery and handwork is central to the appeal. Precision equipment gives a maker control over dimensions. Skilled finishing determines what happens at the edges, where the wearer encounters the object. Asking which operations are done by hand produces a more revealing answer than asking whether the whole frame is handmade.

JMM describes cutting fronts and temples from 10-millimeter acetate blocks, then tumbling and hand-polishing them. Matsuda’s account of its Sabae production emphasizes detailed metalwork and acetate cured for more than three months before construction. These are the brands’ descriptions of their processes, but they give a buyer specific details to ask about and examine.

They also help explain why expensive glasses can look so different. A substantial acetate frame makes its volume part of the design. Fine metalwork gives a maker room to put interest into a bridge or a narrow temple. Either approach can demand considerable effort. The result still has to suit the person wearing it.

HOW THE MAKERS FOUND THEIR OWN STYLE

Production explains the capability. Fashion helps explain the variety of brands a visitor encounters in Tokyo.

EYEVAN began in 1972 with the idea of eyewear as a fashion accessory, alongside Kensuke Ishizu’s VAN Jacket. Its history links glasses to how people dressed, giving customers a reason to consider another pair beyond a prescription change.

That relationship continued in EYEVAN 7285, launched in 2013. Its designers describe borrowing the temple shape from 1940s French cutlery and metal-frame ideas from 1970s eye-testing equipment. Old objects supply details that can be adapted to something worn now. A seemingly reserved frame may have a rather eccentric family tree.

Yuichi Toyama’s route began at a Fukui eyewear manufacturer in 1993. He later worked independently and developed the label that now carries his name. His signature Double Dutch designs take inspiration from the movement of two skipping ropes. It is an unexpectedly playful reference for such precise work, and a reason to look closely at the lines of a frame you might otherwise describe simply as minimal.

Another perspective comes from 999.9, pronounced Four Nines, which began in 1995. Its guiding phrase is “Glasses should be fine tools.” Ease of adjustment and comfort are central to its design philosophy. The premise focuses on what happens after the initial pleasure of seeing yourself in the mirror.

Taken together, these histories suggest why Japanese eyewear rewards exploration. Manufacturing knowledge has supported companies with their own priorities, from interpreting fashion to refining an everyday tool. A buyer can have strong preferences among them. Appreciating the artistry doesn’t mean you have to like every design.

START IN TOKYO AND FOLLOW YOUR CURIOSITY

For a first encounter, spend an unhurried afternoon in the Aoyama and Omotesando area. JMM’s gallery offers one interpretation of the purchase, with considerable attention paid to the setting. The EYEVAN 7285 flagship, at 5-16-2 Minami-Aoyama, provides a focused introduction to another design vocabulary.

Add Glass Gallery 291, the Fukui Optical Association’s showroom at 3-18-5 Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo. It opens daily from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., with year-end and New Year closures. It sells frames to the public and represents participating makers from the region. That makes it a useful place to broaden the search beyond the name that first brought you through the door.

Ask to compare a familiar shape with one you would usually pass over. Try a lighter frame alongside something more substantial. Look at each from the side as well as straight on. A change in thickness or color can alter the impression as much as a change in outline. Leave enough time to discover whether you enjoy the result once the novelty settles.

If the making interests you as much as the choosing, continue to Sabae. The Megane Museum displays the development of eyewear and reconstructs aspects of production from more than a century ago. Its shop offers a useful connection to what local makers produce now.

The museum is about a 10-minute walk from Sabae Station. From Fukui Station, the local Hapi-Line journey to Sabae takes approximately 15 minutes. Museum admission is free, and Wednesday is the regular closing day, except on some holidays.

For a more involved visit, the frame-making class lets participants choose materials and a design, then cut and file a plastic frame under a working craftsperson’s guidance. The standard course runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., including a lunch break. It costs ¥28,000 before lenses and optional add-ons, and reservations are required at least six days in advance.

The finished glasses follow later. A craftsperson completes the finishing over roughly two months. Before booking, overseas visitors should confirm language support and delivery arrangements. There is something appropriate about giving a small object this much time, as long as your plans allow it.

CHOOSE FOR THE LIFE YOU WILL GIVE THEM

The pleasure of buying glasses in Japan should include a proper fitting. Do it early in the trip, especially if you want prescription lenses. Ask the shop to confirm the full price and delivery date before committing. The Megane Museum’s shopping consultation information, for example, allows about two weeks for purchases that include lenses.

Comfort deserves close attention even when the design is compelling. In guidance for the Association of British Dispensing Opticians, dispensing optician Sue Deal explains how a frame that is too narrow can press against the head, while one that is too wide can slip forward. Bridge fit and side length also need checking. Have the optician assess the frame with your prescription in mind.

Then ask what happens after you return home. Can an authorized stockist adjust the glasses? How would you obtain a replacement part or arrange a repair? For something intended to be worn for years, the answers belong in the decision alongside the finish and the name.

The pleasure of a dramatic shape or a particular edition can be reason enough to choose a pair. It helps to separate attraction from a claim about construction. A premium price becomes easier to judge when you can say what, specifically, you value.

Asked about his favorite product in a 2023 interview with The Worldfolio, Masunaga Optical president Soutaro Masunaga gave a wonderfully usable answer: “The pair I am wearing right now is my favorite because it is the most comfortable for me.”

Keep that thought for the fitting. Try the pair you came for, then the one the optician suggests. Give both a little time. The frame you take home should still please you on an ordinary morning, when the trip has become a memory, and you reach for your glasses without thinking.