an opportunity sparked by the growing use of digital screens, a phenomenon accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. To do so, the producer owned by the French luxury group has launched the ‘Blue & Beyond’ project, featuring “a curated assortment of blue light and photochromic UV protection glasses,” said Kering Eyewear in a press release.

 
“Introduced for the first time in the luxury eyewear industry, the Blue & Beyond project consists in the combination of high-end iconic frames with qualitative dual-innovation lenses that are specifically conceived to relieve intense eye strain both indoors and outdoors,” said Kering Eyewear.
 
These truly ‘smart’ glasses, according to Kering Eyewear, are “characterised by a blue-light-filtering treatment with photochromic technology, which makes it possible to reduce the impact of high-energy light from laptops and digital devices, while also protecting the eyes by darkening the lenses’ colour when exposed to sunlight.”

Kering Eyewear, which creates the eyewear collections of nine Kering group labels, among them Balenciaga and Bottega Veneta, as well as those of Richemont group labels Cartier, Chloé, Alaïa, Dunhill and Montblanc, will deploy this technology on select models by Gucci, Saint Laurent and Montblanc.
 
“Over the last year, the increasing amount of time spent in front of digital screens has led us to develop a novelty for the industry. The launch of the Blue & Beyond project marks a further step forward in our continuous commitment to offering the perfect mix of style and functionality,” said Roberto Vedovotto, president and CEO of Kering Eyewear.
 

Blue-light-blocking glasses are increasingly popular, and a growing number of eyeglasses frames are equipped with these speciality lenses. The market is expected to expand at pace in the years to come, opening up new opportunities for Kering Eyewear, which closed the 2020 financial year with a revenue of €487 million, down 17.6% in like-for-like terms.
 
In recent years, a number of studies have drawn attention to the negative effects of blue light on the retina and on biorhythms. The effects depend on the light’s intensity and the length of exposure to it. Some ophthalmologists believe the effectiveness of protective filters and lenses varies greatly, and warn in particular against prolonged exposure to sunlight, which is regarded as the most dangerous.