The world of eyewear is not limited to its medical prescription vision aid value. Today’s guest is a prime example of how there is still so much room to create and innovate in the space. Tom Davies is the visionary and innovator behind the House of Tom Davies, the unparalleled brand for prestigious bespoke eyewear. In this episode, the Willy Wonka of eyewear joins Harbir Sian to share the story of humble beginnings that led to the wide recognition of his creations. Learn about how they continue to pioneer innovations in the industry and what lies ahead. Plus, he gives a tour inside his factory. Get a glimpse by tuning in!
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Pioneering Innovation In The Eyewear Space With Tom Davies
I am super excited for my guest now. I cannot believe I have the one and only Tom Davies on the show with me. If you do not know Tom, let me give you a quick introduction myself, and then I'm going to pass it over to him to let him tell us a little bit about who he is and what he does. He has been dubbed the Willy Wonka of eyecare.
He is Hollywood's go-to frame designer, and his frames have been featured in movies and many others, such as Cruella and the Matrix Resurrections. He has three successful frame collections, TD Bespoke, MD1888, and his newest collection, Catch London. He truly is a visionary and an innovator in the eyewear space. Please welcome Tom Davies. Thank you so much for joining me on the show, Tom.
You are very welcome. Thanks for asking me here.
I'm super excited. You are somebody I have been watching in the eyewear space for years and admiring from afar, with all the cool stuff that you do, all the celebrity collaborations and movie collaborations, all these things that we are going to talk about. Let me talk about the Willy Wonka thing first. Is that something that people say? Is it because you invite people into your factory and let them see all the cool things that you do behind the scenes?
I do not know where the Willy Wonka type came from, but it happened several years ago when I opened this factory here in London. I think because I wanted a place I could experiment in and invent things. There is a lot of the machinery here I have designed myself, which is boring, but engineering point of view.
They are cool machines, but I also designed the acetate materials there. I invented a thing called the acetate kitchen, where we would cook different materials together. I think that Willy Wonka came before that, but I suppose I have been playing into that a little bit. Even to the point where Willy Wonka himself overtaken me because I am making glasses for any movie. It is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy in that sentence.
Do you have Oompa Loompas in the warehouse as well?
For my factory opening party to celebrate all the film work I have been doing, I wanted to hire. One of the films I have done was a film called Fred Claus with Kevin Spacey in it. I also make glasses for all the elves in Santa's village. It is about 30 pairs of little funky little glasses. That was one of the films that were celebrated at most of my parties. I wanted to hire some elves, but I was overruled by my team, who said that would be politically incorrect. They may be mistaken for Oompa Loompas and then I’d get into all sorts of troubles.
In that answer, you touched on so many things that you do. It is crazy. You design some of the equipment and manufacturing stuff that you have. You do all these other things. You clearly integrated into every aspect of what you do. If you were to list off, I would think of you as an eyewear designer, but that is not doing enough justice. Tell me what else you would say about yourself.
I started on my own like any entrepreneur, like as a one-man band. In the beginning, I did everything and that was for a good year or so, but I had a good line in pretending I was a big brand. My business turned twenty years old in 2022. Several years ago, I was pretending to be a big brand, and it took me twenty years to catch up with my exaggeration.
We are now where I was pretending to be many years ago, but in order to be a big brand, and it is just me, I had to design systems that would allow me to do it. For example, I was the first eyewear brand to have a business-to-business website because I used to do a bit of programming as a kid. I put together a little website, which is still, to this day, called super tool. It has evolved. There is nothing left of my crappy original code. I can tell you that.
That was to allow me to run a warehouse, run stock-taking, and sell online in a way that did not exist. There is no off-the-shelf software. You could not buy any of this stuff. That meant I could carry on being a one-man band. I became a two-man band, three-man band, and I decided to open a factory that could make bespoke glasses, but no machines exist that can make bespoke glasses. I look at some of the machines. If I did this to it, did that to it, and changed that, then this could make bespoke glasses.
The same happened with some processes like welding. We want to weld a titanium frame. How do you weld titanium one by one cost-effectively? I figured that secret out as well. We customized the machines. Bit by bit, the machines have grown, and we have replaced them. I have still got my original CNC machine down on the factory floor. I will show you if we go for a little factory tour.
I keep it for posterity. I have not touched the new machine personally, but what I have done, as I said, needs to do this. It needs to do that. We have changed and modified them. I do not program anymore, but I have programmers that work with me or call me. “I need this frame to do this,” and then we reprogram it, and that feeds directly into the machine.
I would say I'm an engineer, frame designer, and manufacturer. I know how to make frames. I can pick up a file and have a go, but I'm also a good salesperson. I love marketing. I spent a lot of time on the marketing side of the brand and on the social media side. I'm pretty ingrained in most areas, the business, finance, logistics, and operations. I will be involved in most of that on a day-to-day basis. I employ about 100 people, but I'm still hooked on all aspects. Even with the retail, we have five stores. I reinvented the eye test and its flow, how people interact with machines, and I'm quite proud of our eye tests.
Visualize your goals to get a wonderful end result.
Older people do not charge enough money for this level of service for optical professionals, certainly in this country, but we charge £150, which is about $200 for an eye test. We are giving them some tea, and you are using HFA, an eye profiler. I'm spending over an hour with each patient. People should pay for that. We have run a very successful clinic on that basis.
In the UK, we are a little bit linked together where eye tests and sales are linked in a way that America is a little bit more separate, but nonetheless, that works well for us. I probably evolved a bit too much in things. It is probably one of my failures, but we are moving the factory around now. I will give you a factory tour, but we are moving everything around. I'm standing on the mezzanine, saying, “Move this machine this much more.” The furniture has to look good as well as function.
Ultimately, you are an entrepreneur in the truest sense. I used the word innovator earlier. I think that applies. The last thing you said there resonated because I happened to have read a couple of passages and some books about that. It has got to also look good. It is not for the sake of aesthetics but for the sake of being complete and seeing it in its truest finished sense. There is a story about Steve Jobs and his dad painting a fence. His dad tells him to paint the other side of the fence, which faces the woods, which nobody is going to see, but his dad says to do it anyway because that is how it is supposed to look. He carried that message into his life at Apple. It reminds me of what you’re saying here.
It makes sense. It resonates with everything else you do, the designs you have, and the experience you are setting up at our stores for people to have this complete experience. It is cool to see that and to see that in a true entrepreneur as well. There is something you said right in the beginning that I wanted to touch on.
The subtitle of this show is bringing clarity to business, entrepreneurship, and life. The entrepreneurship part is important. I did not think about how valuable this part of the conversation would be with you because I would talk about the brand, designs, expo, and all this, but you had this vision of where you wanted it to several years ago be. It is hard to stick to that plan. Can you give me some ideas for somebody who might be starting out now or early in that journey is a slog? You have to fake it until you make it to some degree. Any tidbits of information or advice you might be able to share from that?
I do not know if this is going to work for anybody else, but I will tell you what works well for me. I'm very good at fantasizing about what I'm going to spend my lottery went on. Through that, I think big. It is easy to have big plans and big goals, but sometimes it is hard to visualize it and think you are going to be that successful. I had an overall mission, which was to be the biggest independent eyewear brand in the world. I'm not close enough to that yet.
I remember when I told this to my finance guy at the time, he laughed. I said, “What are you laughing at?” He says, “No, I love your ambition.” For me, that was a certainty. It has taken me a lot longer to get to where I am now. I'm still only probably about halfway there, but nevertheless, the vision and the dream are coming close together.
In terms of luxury fantasies, I have played every single National Lottery in the UK since it started many years ago. I spent far too much time thinking about what I was going to spend my winnings on. Mostly my old lottery fantasy was I'm going to start a factory in London, and I'm going to have my own shops in Central London. I'm going to spend this much money on the Financial Times to advertise my brand. I’m going to have a big fat, fancy car and a big giant house in Richmond where I’ll go live. I'm going to have a PA.
Most of it was lifestyle projection but on the business and the success of the business. That was only about several years ago, I thought, “I have won the lottery because I have achieved all of those things.” We have this thing in England in the way of the National Lottery, and then you have the EuroMillions, and that is where all of Europe plays. You get this near $1 billion jackpot. You can imagine now that the scale ambition has scaled up to what I'm going to be spending my money on, but I can tell you now that it is mostly a bigger factory with more shops and brands.
I do think about these things that this is what I want to do. If money is no object and you are going to get investment and going to get there, how can you get there? What is it going to cost you? What is going to feel like when you achieve it? I believe in visualizing your goals to get this wonderful end result. I would say that I'm getting pretty close to everything I want to do so far.
The visions you had of what you would do if you had won the lottery and you are achieving those things through your hard work and dedication are pretty cool. I'm going to go out on a limb and say, “It probably tastes a lot sweeter to achieve it this way than from pure luck out of the lottery.” On that note, at any point, have you taken a moment to sit back and say, “Look at how far I have come?” How did that feel?
Eyewear Innovation: In bespoke eyewear, you choose the material and frame you like, and we make it fit.
I did that in January 2020. I sat there with a glass of champagne. I said, “Look at that. You made it.” I congratulated myself, toasted my success and had lovely chats with people about how good it was going. Six weeks later, I was nearly out of business. Everywhere was closed down, doom and gloom. I'm not doing that one again.
When did you open this factory that you said? You said 2017. Did I get that right?
This factory is a few years old now. I used to have a factory in China, but I closed that down. There are three reasons for that. One is China was not getting cheap anymore. The second reason is that I wanted to do British manufacturing, grow the company here, and why should I be buying it from China? The third thing was I was fed up with flying to China every six weeks. There has a lot of jet lags. I was living in perpetual jet lags, frankly. It was time to do it.
Let's talk about the brand a little more, but I read somewhere, did I read this correctly, that you brew your own gin in the factory as well?
Most of the silly things we do here, there is no general brew at the moment. We're doing kombucha at the moment. I did that for a few years. I have not done much since COVID. When we are doing trade shows around the world, we turn up and have a gin bar with all these different gins we brewed. Normally, when I do silly things like that, you go to another trade show a year or so later, and there will be somebody brand there with the gin bar or anything. It is time for something else and to rebrand.
It is nice to be the first one and be the innovator. I was already excited to come and visit the factory someday but knowing that you brew gin, I was like, “I will fly over now.”
There is a very famous tequila producer I better not mention because he is wearing very nice glasses and I have got a bottle of tequila. You are welcome to come and try it.
Let's talk about the brand, Tom Davies. Is it correct you have three different brands under the banner of Tom Davies?
It is going to be 4, but now there are 3, and this is the House of Tom Davies. It is funny talking in the third person, but I have been doing it for many years. Everything I do is bespoke. I have lots of crazy ideas I would like to do and fun things. I wanted a vehicle to do something that did not interfere with the focus I needed on my Tom Davies brand, and I would like to do some of that stuff. The Tom Davies brands exist, and it is fine. I have a Tom Davies Precious Range, which is 18-karat gold sunglass, for example, that is a $10,000 sunglass. It’s very nice.
My precious collections as Tom Davies Precious, we got Tom Davies Bespoke, and Tom Davies Ready to Wear. There is a lot of Tom Davies there. That all sit inside the House of Tom Davies. Also, inside the House of Tom Davies is Catch London and MD1888. MD1888 is a brand I wanted to launch years ago, but I have got here a pair of shell frames from my great-great-grandfather. There is a beautiful metal hinge on there. It is a beautiful frame.
My great-great-grandfather was a gentleman called Owen Morgan Davies, who wore these very glasses and was a little bit famous in his time. He was a friend of the Prime Minister of Britain and lived very well to do life in Wales. My great-great-grandfather left Wales and went to Liverpool in 1888. I told this family history story, we researched a little bit, and I now have MD1888. It is an acronym of Morgan Davies because the family name was Morgan Davies. It is Owen Morgan Davies. My great-great-grandfather dropped the Morgan because it was too posh to have in Liverpool in this period as he was a steeplejack, so we became the Davies family.
That is just celebrating a bit of family history. If you ever took a journey of your family history, it is quite fascinating. That was the original frame, and you can see here I got a beautiful thing with these hinges. It is like an homage to the hinge, which was on that frame. All the frames have this, but this collection has been the house of Tom Davies, which means that it has to be a little bit custom or a little bit bespoke.
Although it is a ready-to-wear frame, it comes in nine sizes. That means you can choose 3 sizes for the front, 3 sides of the arms, you can change the colors, and you can put nose pads in. It is a full custom range. The idea is the customer might like this frame. As an optical professional, you can get the bigger one, the smaller one, a longer or shorter, puts some pads in, and choose any of the arms in there. If you had this there and you wanted to put this arms on, you can do that too.
The vision and the dream come close together.
You are talking about a new range. This one is launching in the New York show in the spring of 2022. The other range is not new, but I have been selling it for several years. It’s Catch London. Morgan Davies is a wealth brand. You have got to think about Great Britain. I got Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and England. We will talk about those another time, but here is England. Tom Davies is Great Britain. I’m the British brand because I feel British, not English. This is Catch London. This is a lovely funky collection.
A lot of these are made out of recycled materials. It is a cheaper price point of Tom Davies. These are something like $60 wholesale, something like that. It was made in Britain. The acetates are also made here. There is also funky stuff in them. These as glow in the dark. It is like the stars you put in the ceiling. When you are going to black lights into a nightclub, these will glow in the dark. It is not all glow-in-the-dark silliness.
Tom, can you bring a pair of those to New York? I would love to wear those out. When we go out in New York at the expo, I would love to wear a pair of those glow-in-the-dark ones. That would be great.
These colors here, you could see a lovely shade, but these are all made in my kitchen downstairs. This is what we will be doing in New York. We are inviting 10,000 opticians in America to come to our stand. Hopefully, they all turn up at once. They go to the kitchen and make their own material like this. There is no bespoken in Cash London per se, but there is the ability to create materials and turn them into frames. It is a little bit custom, but there are some great frames. I'm very excited to show these in America first time.
Amazing stuff that you guys are doing with the acetate. Readers, if you have the time, please hop over to YouTube and watch this on YouTube.com/HarbirSianOD. You will find the show, watch this, and you'll see all the cool stuff that Tom has here. Cool colors and combinations of colors. We will go down and check out the factory, so I want everyone to see that as well. I will be showing clips of that on social media. I want to make sure everybody catches that. Tom, if you could explain bespoke. Could you explain that word, so everybody is on the same page?
Bespoke is an old English word, which means spoken for or be spoken. Where it comes from is people would go to the tailors, and the tailor would turn the materials. They choose the material. The tailor would write their name on it, and that material would be spoken for. That is where the word bespoke came from.
You’re in a tailor, and the tailor would take shape and a suit that you like. He would fit it to you and make your shoulders look stronger. Your waist looks thinner. You choose the colors you like, getting the right size, fitting to make it comfortable. What I do in bespoke eyewear is I do pretty much the same thing. You choose the material. You choose a frame that you like in the collection, and we make it fit the customer.
Whereas an MD1888, there are only three different front sizes. In Tom Davies Bespoke, you got 25 different front sizes, and that is a different combination of nose fit, then the A and the B measurement. There should be no reason why you can't pick any frame out of my collections. We make it fit perfectly and change the colors to suit them. You have a lot of fun playing with color.
You can change the base curve as well. If you have got a high prescription, you do not be forcing a high prescription into a 400 base lens. You change that to base three. Some simple things to do, but it makes a dramatic difference to anyone over a - 4 prescription, which is a lot of your customers. You are taking a frame that the customer already likes and using the knowledge that you already have and making adjustments that we made for that customer. Finally, we engrave or write that name Bespoken for on their lens like, “Tom Davies for John Smith,” or whatever.
Did you make frames for Dr. Who?
Not yet.
That would be cool. I’d like that. On that note, why don't we talk about some of the people that you made frames for you have made frames for, if you wouldn't mind sharing? I will say the one that caught my attention a while back was Ed Sheeran. I believe you have done that a couple of times.
He was one of my best customers. He is in a period of his life where he is not wearing glasses when he gets his new album out, fresh-faced. I have made a lot of frames for him over the years. He has a big wardrobe of Tom Davies glasses. He is a super nice chap and knows what he wants. Technically speaking, he was probably my best customer for several years running. My previous best customer was Carrie Fisher. She ordered about 30 frames a year. She was a good customer. She loved the process. We sit down for hours and sit with a sketch pad and draw stuff. She was a lot of fun.
She was my previous best customer, and then my previous best customer was a chap called Heston Blumenthal. You probably have not heard him in America. He is a TV personality in the UK. He is still a very good customer. I do not like giving glasses away from people who do not respect it when you give stuff away.
Most of my famous customers have paid for it, which means I can't talk to you too much about them unless they mention me. Ed Sheeran talks about me on his Instagram, so that is fine. I have done a lot of film work where I would make glasses for celebrities, and that's okay because part of the marketing of the film. I made glasses for Spider-Man for Tom Holland. In the same movie, Jake Gyllenhaal. They are both super nice people.
Eyewear Innovation: Twenty years ago, I was pretending to be a big brand, and it took me twenty years to catch up with my exaggeration.
Which one was that? Was it Far From Home?
I think. One of the reasons I like doing the film work is it is great to go on the set. I was on a set for a big movie. I can't tell you about it yet. It is great to see these huge sets. It’s like people pay to go on studio tours, and I'm there for real. I like seeing the film sets and seeing all the props.
Let's talk about a couple of that you have done so we do not get in trouble by accidentally mentioning upcoming stuff. I know you did a lot of stuff for The Matrix, and I even have my Morpheus clip right here, which is super cool. I'm going to put it on here.
We talked about this before we came on, but I can guarantee you what I have done. This is my top tip for everybody. Whatever your reading prescription is, get a clear pair with like a + 125, or something like that, because it is the best lying in bed reading glasses you will ever have. I use them every day, night, and day. I've got to give myself some extra pairs. There are so good. Everyone needs a pair of these.
You always end up leaning on your hand or the pillow, and your glasses will get pushed up against your face. These do not touch your temples. They are never going to get pushed out of place. That is amazing.
That is the top tip for this episode, don’t do anything else. Get your pince-nez Matrix Morpheus. They are for sale from me. I do not make any money on those. I just did it for fun. We made about 1,000 of those, and they are all limited edition. I have got about 800 pieces left of those things. Get some pince-nez +125. It’s the best thing you will ever do.
The mechanics on the clip is amazing. The way it works is so cool. Should we talk about the upcoming shows, or should we do the factory tour first? What would you prefer?
Let's finish off with the factory tour and what was going on down there.
The big one we are going to talk about is Vision Expo. I know that you have another show coming up real soon in the UK, the Great British Eyewear Show. Is that something that you put on yourself, or are you involved in somehow?
I just call it home myself sometimes. I should not do it, but I could not help myself. I wanted a trade show because all the trade shows in Europe got canceled because of COVID. No one was brave enough to put on a show. Eyewear brands were like, “We need shows.” There was a British show, which was pushed out from January 2022. There was Omicron around at the time. They put that one out. I thought, “Christ, that is it. I'm going to do a trade show.”
I had put one on The Great British Eyewear Show last November 2021. It was a great success. We found a cool space. I called up a couple of the brands that I'm friends with. I said, “Let's all chip in.” We all put in some money together. We find this place in Custard Factory in Central England. It was a great show, and it was good. We sold both glasses there. We did at Opti in Germany the previous January 2021.
It cost very little, and it was a community thing. I did not make any money. We have money left. I said, “Let's buy books and masseuses. Let's get Indian food and book a DJ. We have got too much money. Let's have a party. Let’s get some booze in.” We ended up getting all this stuff, and people seemed to appreciate it. We had hired a barista. He is making like coffee. People come up and get their coffee. The guy goes, “That is free.” They go, “What?” I said. “It is free.”
The opticians seemed to enjoy it. We put this show on. We go to a location in the Northern country for The Great British Eyewear 2. All the GVs were calling out. We got the GVs on. It is the same thing. We got bottomless pizza. It was in a nightclub and a restaurant combined. We also got some CDP or CT points. I've got some things where opticians can get some lectures going on. I've taken my acetate kitchen there. Opticians can come in and make acetate. We have got 35 grams. We all chipped in, and anyone who comes gets free drinks, pizza, massages, whatever.
The trenches can be a little bit stiff and too big sometimes. I said, “I am super looking forward to the New York show, and it is my biggest ever trade show.” I have always gone two ways. I liked small shows, and I'm gone massive. I'm spending $100,000 on this show in New York. It is crazy. I have shipped over a full acetate kitchens to New York. I have got like 30 staff coming, and we have our own hotel.
We have got the three brands there, but I have got two stands, one for Tom Davies and MD1888 over here because I want to keep the Catch London to breathe on its own. I got an acetate plate. That is what opticians will ask to make when they come onto my stand. If you are reading this, I'm holding up a sheet of acetate. You can see that is what you will be cutting out of, but you will see in my acetate kitchen on the floor, the ability to make your own material.
If you open an account with me, you can choose any frame out of the collection, and we'll turn it into your plate and the design you made in the show. I have never done this before. It might be an epic fail. It won’t. It’s going to be awesome. It is something brand new in eyewear. Come to trade shows, design, and make your own material. It is probably going to work.
Glasses are so much about the character.
Even if it were to fail, I feel like it is going to be Elon Musk and the Cyber Truck, he throws the wood and the brick at the window, and it breaks. It is going to be like that. It is going to draw everybody’s attention and see what Tom was doing. Look at this cool thing. Even if it doesn’t work, you are still going to get all the credit for putting forth an amazing effort. When I went to Vegas last 2021 for Expo West, you guys had a nice, more discreet smaller setup in a suite there where I was fortunate enough to do that, to mix some colors and get a frame made. I do not have it with me because it is in the car. I actually wear it.
What happened in Vegas was we made a mini acetate kitchen shipped there that got stuck, with global shipping being a nightmare at the moment. What could happen in New York is everything's on a ship on its way to New York, and it still hasn't docked. What I have done this time is I have made two more acetate kitchens that are sitting downstairs. If it goes tits up, like what we say in England, I'm going to stick it on an airplane, and it is going to cost an absolute fortune.
What could go wrong is not the process because the process works. They could either not arrive or it could be too successful. I did this once at an event in England. It was a little mini trade show. There were sixteen brands there. Our brand had a two-hour queue to get on the stand. All the other brands were empty, looking at us with evil eyes.
I have a feeling that it is the more likely scenario.
It could be, but with this time, I have got three acetate kitchens instead of one, and I have got an army of people there. I was on the phone before we spoke to a guy from military costumes, trying to see if we could get some bearskin hats and a red outfit. I can get some security guards on the stand to beat up all the opticians feverishly trying to get free glasses off of us.
What are those called, the guards at the palace?
There are Beefeaters, but Beefeaters are something different. They are called the royal guards. They wear bearskin hats and scarlet outfits. I'm struggling to get the bearskin hats. I might not get them imported to America.
I love how big you think and extravagant you make things. It is so cool. I feel like we are missing that in a lot of ways in a lot of places. We have tended to commoditize and mainstream everything. You are doing such a cool job of staying out in that space, making that luxury and the unique experience vital to your brand. I think that is so cool.
I feel like we are a startup company.
The fact that you still feel that way like it is a startup after several years is cool. From an entrepreneur's perspective, to maintain that mindset all these years is amazing. That is what is going to help you continue to innovate. Thank you for continuing to do that. Let's talk about Expo East a little bit more. What can we, who are attending the show, expect? Where should we go? What should we look for? Tell me more. Are you doing the thing where you are sending out a ticket to people, or are the whole people getting that golden ticket?
I originally had this idea and plan ready for 2020 New York. The Catch London brand was going to be launching in New York in March 2020. It was heartbreaking, but nonetheless, it was such a good idea. I know you got enough people watching this, but this will be coming through the posts for people because you got to look out for this. Inside is a golden ticket. We have been hand-selecting people to send these too, but we have an exhaustive list, the golden ticket. You would be getting one of these through the post and you need that to be able to come on to the stand so we can track it.
If we have not sent you your golden ticket idea and are reading this, you probably want to call us and ask if you can get one because it could be that the mailing list is not very good. I had a couple of interns from the Netherlands several years ago. I got them to go through every website they could. It has been several months, dropping about 10,000 email addresses and a database. That is a list that is going out. You could be on the list. You maybe want to contact us if you have not got something like this, but this golden ticket allows you to go on the stand and design an acetate plate. What we will do is you choose a frame, and we will cut it out of your creation. You have it done.
Taking that whole Willy Wonka thing to the next level here, you are printing golden tickets to invite people to your makeshift factory there at the expo. If anybody out there is thinking about going to the expo, I'm finally going. I'm going to Vision Expo East. I have been trying to go for years, and finally, able to go in 2022, knock on wood, if everything goes well. Make sure you are there and check out House of Tom Davies, get your golden ticket, go get your frames made, experience the brand and everything that Tom stands for. It is such a cool experience.
You will be looking for the Catch London stand. It is a separate stand. You are going to see it. It is going to be there. You should be able to find it.
Is it about time we go for a little walk now?
I'm going to try and describe this. I'm going to have a look around in the factory. I’m going to narrate what we are seeing because people are reading. We go on to the mezzanine. I love standing out here because it is one of my favorite places. I see all the machinery. These are my new babies down here. These are two brand new CNC machines.
They have been plugged in, and they have not even cut a pair of glasses yet, but they will speed up my bespoke production by around 2%. This was the kitchen area. It is a circular roof. You can go all around here. That’s the TV bar. We socialize here. We got to three layers of offices if you walk around here. This is the central area, where we bump into each other and enjoy each other's company.
Eyewear Innovation: When making a bespoke frame for somebody, you're always thinking about the character, what you want them to project, how you can make it look, and how they can feel.
This is a problem that the acetate kitchen here, there are some leftover bits in the acetate kitchen because I have moved it over to here. This is the acetate kitchen in the London factory. You can see all the beautiful chips and these what you may call it out of. We have got the colors there. These chips glow in the dark.
Here is an acetate plate I made. You can see these greens, yellows, and browns. There is a lovely crystal and lovely green color. What one does is you take the chips, you give it a turn. I have got now about 25 grams in there. I'm going to do a little bit of this color as well. That is the brown. I have got a nice khaki color, and why not have a bit of craziness in it? Why would I put some of these chips like a dummy? Look at that. It is madness.
Here I got a metro mold. We are going to pull that into that. I’m pouring the chips into a mold now. We are going to do that across the make a nice part. This mold is still warm from the previous job we are making one in. That plate is like that. I stick that on top of there. We put a plate on top. Now this beautiful thing here will go into the oven. Those are the ones that have been unplugged. We are moving it. Since we are still running a few more plates, these old machines are still plugged in. This is the prototype of the machine, but that will go in there. I'm going to cook that frame, and it is going to be beautiful.
That will be ready to produce inside half an hour that could be made. Let's have a look around here. This is the final QC. You can see the frames being in final QC. Over in the corner here, I have got a couple of laser pieces for engraving people's names on for bespoke. We do a lot of that, The Matrix glasses, Morpheus’ nose clip.
Back on the floor, this is tumbling. That is tumbling, where you polish the frames. Let’s put some frames in there. I have got a gold plating lab in here. I'm going to show you some glow-in-the-dark glasses. If I put blue lights on, it does not make any difference. If you have like the stars, you might have them on your ceiling.
It is almost like a lightsaber on your face. That is glowing off of the frame. Is that part of the Catch London line, the glowing frame?
Everything is Catch London. If I sit over here, I think this is the glow and the dark plate. These ones are with blue lights. The one I showed you a second ago was the resins in. These ones here are the blue light stuff. If you go out on a cruise ship or a nightclub, that is what you get. These are brand new.
I hope people are going over to YouTube to watch these. This is so cool. These frames are glowing like that. This is a huge place, Tom.
We have moved the polishing section here. That is a new titanium polishing machine. That is the acetate polish machine. We should arrive there. This is where we do temple matching. This is where you put the base curve in the frame. Here we have temple matching as well. This is hinge planting, where we plant the hinge into a frame.
Every aspect of the frame is done here in this factory.
Everything but titanium welding. We are not doing that yet, but that is the plan. I need to sell a few more glasses so I can afford five machines. That is why titanium takes long. That is the main stuff. There is other stuff, but you probably do not need to see the logistics room and the Lego room. You do not need to see the Lego room.
You got my interest now. How could we not see the Lego room? We have to.
Here is my first machine. This has made 683,216 bespoke pairs of glasses. I made that a long time ago. I will quickly show you in here. This is one of my other favorite rooms. It relaxed me.
That is a nice little sanctuary that you have there.
It is the most popular room in the factory. We are going to come into this logistics room, and I have the Lego room hidden in here because they are as valuable as all these glasses, millions of pounds of the glasses.
It says Lego on the door as well. That is awesome. Amazing.
Mrs. Davies kicked out my Lego collecting a long time ago, but thankfully, I have a big factory. I can put it all there.
I have some friends who are absolute Lego fanatics, and they have all sorts of incredible stuff. Yours is the biggest collection I have seen so far, though. That is impressive.
I'm going back to the offices back to my desk so we can sign off. This is half of the nerve center.
How many square feet is the entire place? That is a big place that you have there.
You can have such a massive impact on someone’s life when you give them a great frame that fits.
65,000 square feet.
That sounds like reasonable numbers. It is huge.
There is my desk. It is absolute chaos, and that is some glasses from Jurassic Park.
You mentioned the new Jurassic Park movie. Are we allowed to talk about that one?
I'm not entirely sure, to be honest with you. It was not a big one. They just bought some. I made them, but they paid for them. It was for a couple of characters, nothing too fancy. If I do work on a big film, like Matrix, that was like a two-year project. I have got a couple of big project films. They are much more careful considering that you are working with the costume director and working with the director of the movie. His glasses are so much about the character. When I'm making a bespoke frame for somebody, you are thinking about that character, what you want them to project, how you can make it look, and how they can feel.
Glasses in films are difficult to do well because there are lots of decisions about what can and can't work. Everyone has got an opinion. There are lots of creative people there. Glasses don’t tend to happen. That is why I think I have been quite successful because there is no compromise. Do you want to have the glasses? We are going to make those classes for you.
If the actor says, “I want it to be like this,” then we will get that for you as well. It is the reason that the film industry is so successful for me, but I do it for fun because what I love doing is making glasses for everybody like normal people, changing that character. You can have such a massive impact on someone’s life when you give them a great frame that fits them. That's the number one reward for all our jobs.
If you can impact somebody's life positively, that is the foundational thing that we are all trying to do. You said changing character. That reminds me, you made a pair for Clark Kent for this Warner Bros. exhibition that is happening. Can you tell us a bit about that? I have to question myself before I bring something up because I do not know if it is public information or not.
Warner Bros. will have a 100-year anniversary exhibition in London. This is Clark Kent’s glasses from the film. It is Henry Cavill. If you are looking at this on YouTube, you will see that the arms are incredibly long. A lot of people's glasses are too short. One of the most common things we did not expect is to make the arms longer, but in this case, I did lots of work on this frame to make Henry Cavill not look like cool Superman. I like this frame as well.
Is Henry Cavill wearing them in the movie or wearing them in person?
In the movie, the aim was when he puts them on, to make it not look like Superman. It is a disguise. A lot of superheroes put a mask on, but with Superman, he takes his mask off. In our case, he takes the glasses off. When he puts his glasses on, he should not look like Superman. That is the number one aim. I looked carefully at all these lines around his face because he has a chiseled superhero jaw. The guy is square.
If I was going to make him a pair of glasses, normally, it would not be these. These do look good on him, but they have the effect of changing what he looks like. That was the idea. We did them in buffalo horn, make it fit in his nose, and make them look good. Superman was the number one person I wanted to make glasses for in the world, and I achieved that one.
I can't even put into words how amazing, because I'm a big comic book superhero fan. The fact that you have made glasses for Superman is incredible. Tom, there are two questions I like to ask every guest at the end of every show. Before we get there, if you could share with us, where can people find you? Where can people find the brand online or offline? What is the best place for everyone to go?
I do not sell my glasses to the end-user. I do sell some MD online and eyewear in Catch London, but the truth is, I think we sold two pieces. I do not believe in online glass selling. You need a service, but with MD, the service is important. With bespoken, the service is critical. You could sell that to end-users, but you can go to the websites as an optician and see collections, but I do not put even the full collections online either. I liked to meet people. We have sales reps who could come and see. We have the trade shows you can come and see. We want to make sure we have got good partnerships with people.
We do not say yes to everybody. We want to make sure that it has got a good relationship with the right fit because otherwise, you waste people's time and money. I'm a people person and in a relationship with them. We have a sales team in America. I have hired 50 new sales reps in America. Hopefully, you will be well served by them, and I've got six reps on Tom Davies and MD as well. I have got a big team in America. I have got an office in Chicago. I will be there working away. It is all good stuff.
Eyewear Innovation: That’s why I’ve been so successful because there’s no compromise. You want these glasses? We’re going to get those glasses for you.
If you are in North America reading this and you are curious, if you want to message me on Instagram, I can send you to people that I know who are working, but Mickey Collins has been amazing. She is based in Seattle. She was telling me that there is now a huge team. We can for sure get you in touch with somebody who can help you bring the brand in.
If you happen to be a non-optical, reach out to your optician or optometrist and tell them that you are interested in this brand. That might help them bring it in as well. More people can start to see this amazing stuff. Tom, I can’t wait until I'm in London next because I want to pop into your Central London store, check it out and get that full experience. I'm excited to get that as well.
We are going to trial an acetate kitchen in one of our shops and see if end users like the idea, but you never know. You are welcome to the factory and so are your readers. This is why we are here, to come up at some point and play in Willy Wonka's silly factory.
The two final questions that I ask every guest at the end of the show, the first is, Tom, if we could hop in a time machine and go back to a point in your life where things were difficult, what advice would you give to yourself at that time? If you would like to share the moment, you can.
The only time life was difficult was when I was a teenager, like 14 or 15. I would not give myself any advice. He needs to get on with it and sort it out. If I give him advice, it might change who I am now. I do not want anything to change. I would keep my mouth shut. I have used a time machine to go forward so I can have a look at what becomes of humanity. That is what I would like to do.
This one only goes back to painful parts of your past. Unfortunately, it is a unique time machine. That is nice to hear as well from somebody who has been successful. It is nice to hear that you are happy where you are, and you would not change it because those difficult times have helped you grow into who you are now. That is an important lesson. The final question is in everything you have achieved. How much of it would you say is due to luck and how much is due to hard work?
I'm quite a lucky person, generally speaking. I know I am. Whether they’re blessed with that from the cost marks or whether you make your own look, I'm not entirely sure. I'm lucky that I was born into Britain with the privileges and access to education. That is something not to be underestimated, but you make the best of what you have got from that moment onwards. I can say that.
That is lucky in a way, being born in a certain place and to certain parents or family. From there, lots of people have that privilege, but where do you take it from there? That is all in you. That is excellent. Tom, any other final words you would like to share or any other last bits of information you want people to know about yourself or the brand?
I would say if you would like to come to New York and make some acetate frames and you can't make it, maybe we will come and see you. I can’t promise anything at the moment. Maybe New York Vision Expo or whenever. If you fancy a trip to the fly over the pond, why not come over and check out my stores here at the factory? Most of all, be out there and carry on. Keep calm and carry on.
That is the most perfect British thing that you could say. Honestly, this has been an honor for me. As someone who has been admiring you and your brand from afar, to have this opportunity to speak to you one-on-one and share your story with the audience is incredible. I'm super excited to meet you in New York.
Everybody out there who is reading, please check out the brand. I know maybe the brand does not have so much of a footprint in North America yet, but you are going to start hearing about it a lot more now moving forward. You are going to want to have this brand in your store and optical. It is going to be a brand that a lot of people are talking about.
Thanks again, Tom, for coming on, and thank you to everybody who is reading. If you did not watch it, please go back to YouTube and check it out. There is so much cool stuff that Tom was showing on camera that I would love for you to see. I'm sure you took some value away from this. I'm sure it was entertaining. If anything, Tom is such an entertaining person.
If you found it entertaining or valuable, please do share it, take a screenshot, throw it up on Instagram, tell a friend, post it on LinkedIn, whatever you do, all of those things you do is help the show. Thank you all so much. I will see you in New York, Tom, I will see you at Vision Expo, and I'll see everybody else in the next episode.
Important Links
Instagram - Dr. Harbir Sian, Optometrist
About Tom Davies
British spectacle designer Tom Davies brings the luxury of bespoke to frames. Consumers can spend thousands on their wardrobe. Yet when it comes to glasses, which are the defining feature of their face, they won’t countenance paying more than a couple of hundred pounds for something they will wear everyday for years on end. That, at least, was the case until British spectacle designer Tom Davies came onto the scene.
In a short time, Tom has revolutionised glasses by introducing bespoke frames, expressly designed and handmade to suit a person’s face, colouring, physical characteristics and lifestyle. In 2017 Tom Davies celebrated 15 years by unveiling a new "Made in England" factory, based in West London. Production at the new Brentford facility has already started and it has the capacity to produce 10,000 frames per month.