Sights set on design Brothers turned doctors, look to glasses as they honour family roots By: Martin Cash Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Tuesday, Jul. 9, 2019 Last Modified: 7:05 PM CDT Tuesday, Jul. 9, 2019 Updates

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This article was published 08/07/2019 (2000 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Aiken brothers — optometrist Dr. Andrew Aiken and family practitioner resident, Dr. Christopher Aiken — have been design geeks since they were little.

Their great uncle, Jarvis Blomfield, was a prominent Canadian artist at the turn of the century who, among other things designed the original crest for the city of Vancouver.

Although they both pursued careers in the medical sciences they’ve always had a passion for design.

Even before Andrew Aiken founded Clarity Vision — a four location eye care clinic — five years ago, they had it in their heads that they wanted to create a high quality, Canadian-designed eyewear line that didn’t have to cost several hundred dollars.

More than five years later the original production run of their new frames — the brand is called JBlom, after their great-uncle designer — is now available at the Clarity Vision locations. The tag line, “Handmade in Italy, Designed in the Prairies” describes the process as well as the ethos.

Obviously busy with demanding medical practices this is more than a hobby for both of them.

Andrew, 36, said they know the business needs to be viable but they are in no rush to force things. He quotes the CEO of Patagonia, whose approach he admires, who said, “You don’t want to be in an over-heated market and be underprepared.”

Since Italy is where high quality eyewear frames are made — the Aikens were not able to uncover any Canadian manufacturers — that’s where they had to go to make a deal.

It took three trips to Italy, discussions with about 100 different companies and countless hours beating the pavement before they found a manufacturer willing to take on a small Prairie design enterprise.

It also took them hundreds of hours teaching themselves to use the digital design tools required for the exacting millimetre by millimetre design work for something like eyewear.

“We became members of North Forge and I would be there until five or six in the morning doing 3-D design prototypes,” said Christopher, 34. “We realize it’s a bit of a random thing (designing high end eyewear while practicing medicine). But we’re really interested in design. After 15 years studying science (Christopher took a medical PhD in the middle of his medical school studies) this is something outside my comfort zone. It’s a bit of a passion thing.”

With four standard designs — wayfarer, round, square and rectangle — in a number of different colours, made with high quality Italian acetates the first run of 1,200 frames is now available with a second run probably in the next six months with more colours and shapes and sizes.

Getting into it they were well aware of the monolithic stranglehold international companies like Luxottica have on the market. (In 2017 Italy’s Luxottica, the leading consumer eyewear group in the world which owns so many of the popular brands including LensCrafters, Sunglass Hut, Pearle Vision,Target Optical, Ray-Ban and Oakley merged with France’s Essilor, the biggest manufacturer of lenses in a 73 billion euro deal.)

“It’s been a tough go. A lot of work getting this thing going over the past five years,” Andrew said. “It’s great to finally have the frames on the retail shelf.”

There is never any accounting for taste in the marketplace, but the Aiken brothers’ JBlom brand has two authentic drivers behind it — their sincere passion for the design of the glasses and their determination to make a real high quality product at a price that the average guy could afford. (For the first run the designs are male-oriented, although most eyeglasses are unisex.)

The glasses sell for $279 including high quality Zeiss lenses and anti-reflective coating.

“We were not looking to reinvent the wheel,” Andrew said. “We took proven designs and have made our own unique versions of them, spiced them up using high end Italian acetate to create a rich look. They turned out even better than we thought.”

Unlike some of the other newer low cost brands that have been disrupters in the market, JBlom has not scrimped on the quality of either the frames or the lenses.

Granted it’s a small-scale operation, at least for now, but the infrastructure is getting put in place to make it sustainable and viable. With a four-location eye-care business operating as separate businesses, they were able to justify the purchase of a $200,000 edging machine that can cut 60 lenses per hour at full capacity. In addition to doing the lenses for its JBlom line, the machine is also doing all the cutting for all the Clarity Vision eyewear sales.

“We’re being hyper-local to start with a focus on the Winnipeg market,” Andrew said. “Ultimately we want to develop a unique Canadian eyewear brand that can flourish. It would be really neat to see that come to fruition.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca

Martin Cash
Reporter

Martin Cash has been writing a column and business news at the Free Press since 1989. Over those years he’s written through a number of business cycles and the rise and fall (and rise) in fortunes of many local businesses.

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