Italy's Leonardo Del Vecchio, the chairman of EssilorLuxottica and one of Italy’s wealthiest business figures, has died at the age of 87.
EssilorLuxottica announced his passing, expressing its “deepest condolences to the family and to the global employee community for this enormous loss”.
Del Vecchio founded Luxottica in 1961, initially to supply components for glasses, and remained the chairman and largest shareholder, with a controlling 32% stake, in the world's biggest eyewear group after it combined forces with Essilor in 2018. Fashion designer and business colleague Giorgio Armani was among those who paid tribute to Del Vecchio. "Together, we invented a phenomenon that did not exist, we immediately realised that glasses, from simple functional objects would become indispensable fashion accessories," he wrote on Twitter.
