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VISIONARY STYLE Known for stone, Ann Sacks now sees the future in glass.By PETE SCHULBERG Issue date: Fri, Jun 24, 2005 The Portland Tribune Two years after retiring from her immensely successful high-end tile, stone and plumbing products business, Ann Sacks saw potential in a completely different, often overlooked area of design. That would be reading glasses. Yes, the "readers" that most over-40 types -- especially men -- buy on the cheap at a drugstore without giving them a second thought until they fall apart or disappear. "People go to a lot of trouble nowadays to feel and look their best," explains Sacks, 56, sitting in her spacious Northwest Portland two-story apartment. ?And then they're putting on reading glasses that are ill-fitting and unattractive. Why would a woman wear a pair of $1,200 shoes and unattractive reading glasses?" That's a question Sacks hopes to change the answer to. And if her experience with reading glasses is anything like her experience with the tile company ? which she sold to Wisconsin-based Kohler Co. in 1989, staying on as president ? Sacks may be on her way to chalking up another notch in the win column. Amy Sacks Eyewear and Accessories, headquartered at 510-A N.W. 23rd Ave., is named for Sacks' 21-year-old daughter, who has a year to go at the University of Iowa and will be coming back to Portland to run the new venture with her mom. "Ann has a wonderful eye for color, and that translates so perfectly into eyewear," says Amy Spiezio, the owner of a pair of Amy Sacks readers and managing editor of the Pennsylvania-based magazine Eyecare Business. "Her glasses were a big hit in New York for her first big trade show rollout." Because of the aging population, sales of reading glasses increase each year. As millions of baby boomers reach their 40s and 50s, farsightedness, known as presbyopia, usually sets in. But the market for high-end readers lags considerably behind. Big names sign on The glasses, complete with lenses, are priced from $85 to $105, which Sacks points out is hundreds of dollars less than some of her competition, such as Armani. Big-name stores including Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale's and Barneys New York ? along with local stores Mario's, Eyes on Broadway and Reynolds Optical ? carry the Sacks line. There's also a Web site (www.amysacks.com), where Sacks says half the sales are from "younger" customers who want the frames for their prescription glasses. So far, none of the large optical chains that manufacture their own glasses carry the Amy Sacks brand. The 55 styles of glasses come in a variety of shades and colors, including black tortoise, cherry, amber, chinchilla, taffy, granite and mahogany. There also are sunglasses. Sacks says she likes to keep her frames "very simple yet fashionable." "They're putting the fun back into eyewear," says Sam Thomas, Mario's buyer and salesman. "For the price, they're the best quality and made as well as anyone." Following her instincts When Sacks started developing her tile line in 1980 out of her home, the former social worker and junior high school teacher had no design experience. But she soon opened a showroom in Portland, and her business took off like a rocket, eventually growing to 19 stores. She's well-known in the interior design industry. "I had this intuition that tile could be nicer than it was," Sacks explains. "But I knew that I didn't know much. And I didn't know anything about the fashion industry. I wasn't a Neiman?s shopper." Sacks plunged into eyewear about a year and a half ago. She looked up the glasses buyer for Texas-based Neiman Marcus on the Internet and sent her a pair of glasses with a note saying she thought they'd look great on her. "She e-mailed me back, saying she really needed reading glasses," Sacks says. "She could have gone downstairs and seen a thousand pairs of glasses" inside her own store, but favored the Sacks glasses. Most clothing stores find it difficult to carry reading glasses because they would have to pile up a hefty inventory, including lenses of various magnifications. Sacks distributes frames only, and then takes orders for the lenses. "We opened up a lab in Portland (at Reynolds Optical), which enables us to create an order in seven to 14 days," Sacks says. The materials for the frames come from Italy and France; they're manufactured in China. Sacks concedes that the startup company hasn't been an overnight success: "It's getting better and better, but it was very difficult to get this going. (Some retailers) would rather shoot you than talk to you." Return to Amy Sacks News |
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