VOIDOLCE

The name

VoiDolce is a word we made up. It is not Italian, and it is not French. It is made of both.

Voir — French, to see. Dolce — Italian, sweet. Put together they mean nothing in either language and something rather precise in ours: a sweeter way to see.

Say it voy-DOL-chay

The line underneath it, la dolce vista, is the sweet view. It is a small joke on la dolce vita and also the entire brief. The good life turns out to be largely a question of what you are looking at, and how well you can see it.

Where it comes from

We are building this in Charleston, which is a difficult place to keep your eyes open. For most of the year the sun arrives three times at once — straight down, up off the harbour, and sideways off the marsh and the asphalt. You learn quickly which sunglasses were designed for photographs and which were designed for light.

So we started at the lens and worked outward. The frames are made in Italy, by people who have been shaping acetate for longer than the brand will have existed. That is the whole company in one sentence: American light, Italian hands.

What we are making

• IThe lens is chosen by wearing it. Every tint goes out for blind comparison against the best on the market — on the water, on the course, behind a windscreen — before anyone in this company is allowed an opinion about it.
• IIThen it goes to an independent lab, and we publish what comes back. Polarization, UV, scratch resistance, optical clarity. Not our numbers. Theirs.
• IIIMade in Italy will mean made in Italy. Cut, formed, edged, assembled and finished there — not boxed there.
• IVNothing you could read across a room. The recognizable part is the shape, the material and the colour of the light coming through.