Minima's Maurice Timon and Sophie Pottecher celebrating 30 years of Minima eyewear at Silmo 2024

Known for its light, rimless frames for adults and its innovative, hingeless, nearly unbreakable brightly coloured young children’s frames, French eyewear company Minima celebrated 30 years in the business at Silmo 2024.

The company story is captured in an elegant book produced for its landmark anniversary which outlines why Maurice Timon founded the company in 1994. “I was an eyewear distributor in an optical market where there was no shortage of competition. I was looking for niche products that could stand out… (and) I was obsessed with one idea: the aesthetics of lightness.”

Minima glasses must be lightweight, flexible and strong, said Timon, but also affordable, especially when it comes to kids’ frames, as they are still growing. Key to Minima’s innovative junior ranges is their hingeless technology, using a Lego-like system to attach the flexible rubber temples to the frame fronts allowing them to bend by more than 90⁰ without breaking. The ranges can also be produced in small quantities as everything is made in Minima’s factory in France, said Minima’s Asia-Pacific sales manager Sophie Pottecher, adding the brightly coloured, interchangeable temples come in two lengths to ensure a good fit. However, children’s frames are very technical, Timon said, so it’s important for optometrists and dispensing opticians to be trained to measure children’s faces and fit them correctly.

Minima's colourful junior specs with hingeless technology

The company’s latest innovation for children is its 3D Junior Hybrid range, which incorporates the latest 3D-printing technology enabling multiple, bright colour choices, frames specially designed for young Asian children, and ‘incredible’ detailing on the temples, including flowers, which the little girls love, Timon said. Launched at Mido earlier this year, the range was nominated for a 2024 Silmo d’Or award.

“The idea that a pair of glasses can be simple, attractive, functional and affordable by as many people as possible means we can focus on what’s essential: making your sight easier and more beautiful,” Timon says in the foreword of the book. Now 71, he said he’s still passionate about the design and manufacture of lightweight, strong glasses and is delighted to have passed this passion to his daughter, Sandra, who will be leading the company into its next chapters.