Word: luxottica
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...still. The glasses. The headgear necessary to watch modern 3-D TVs remains bulky - and, well, ugly - but Luxottica, maker of Ray-Ban, is working on a solution for that. The company plans to release 3-D glasses modeled after Ray-Ban's classic Wayfarer shades, giving even the style-concious enthusiast little reason to resist...
...that Del Vecchio first got to know Brooks. Growing up near Cortina, he worked summers in the tool department of his father's eyeglass factory?a business that eventually grew into the market-leading Luxottica Group and made the family one of the richest in Italy. Though far from the U.S., Del Vecchio and his compatriots knew to revere Brooks Brothers, thanks to Fiat magnate Gianni Agnelli and the legendary trips he took to New York City to load up on his favorite button-down shirts...
When Del Vecchio came to New York City to head Luxottica's U.S. distribution arm in 1982, he became a frequent customer. In 1992 he persuaded Marks & Spencer to give Luxottica the license for Brooks-branded eyewear. But it wasn't until 1995, when Luxottica bought the parent company of LensCrafters, that Del Vecchio started down a path that would lead him to take over the iconic clothier...
...deal for LensCrafters, Luxottica also got the midmarket women's-clothing chain Casual Corner. Luxottica couldn't find a buyer for the poorly performing outfit and after two years was on the verge of liquidating it when Del Vecchio said he'd buy it himself. Why? "It was a gut feeling more than anything else," he says. So Del Vecchio left day-to-day operations at Luxottica to strike out on his own. Within a few years, the hemorrhaging at Casual Corner had stopped?and Del Vecchio was looking to expand into additional retail concepts...
...Luxottica, Del Vecchio spent years in distribution, and with Casual Corner he refined his understanding of supply-chain management. Those strengths were on full display at Brooks as the hands-on Del Vecchio personally met with each of the company's suppliers. Some he had to woo back, like the shoe company Alden, which had made cordovans for Brooks for more than 90 years before Marks & Spencer all but discontinued them. Others he simply had to encourage, like Brooklyn, N.Y., suitmaker Martin Greenfield, whom Del Vecchio asked to make the best suits he could (forgetting about price) and then...