Our brand, our origins
Folc eyewear is an independent design - focused sunglasses brand based in Barcelona, specialised in creating contemporary collections with a distinct style and personality.
When Marta Llinarès, product designer and founder of the brand decided to launch her own collection in 2016, she designed the collections following her own personal values and likes with the most possible freedom. Folc is dedicated to those individuals that are fascinated by high quality product design pieces and the story behind them, always attempting to be as local and sustainable as possible.
Sculpted & handmade
We conceive each spectacle as a sculpture, working smoothly with volumes combined with deep colour solid and transparent materials, creating new visual games of lights and shades.
Our style, is a combination of classic shapes updated to contemporary silhouettes through the thick lines and chunkier profiles.
Product design, Barcelona
As a designed-focused brand an extensive amount of time is dedicated to the design process. We start designing and creating each collection 10 to 12 months before these shapes will be ready to deliver to the market. We develop an important variety of shapes that become hand made prototypes. After checking all the volumes, weight and fitting, we do the final selection and move forward to the final with the pre-manufacturing prototypes and colour/material selection..
Slow design
Launching a sustainable amount of new shapes every year is the key to being able to put more value into the design of each frame.
Folc eyewear focuses on launching small collections, with a limited number of models where we focus on putting all our knowledge so as to be able to create a perfect balance between aesthetics and function.
Our design and manufacturing process takes time of research and development to be able to achieve top quality eyewear, this is the reason why we prefer quality over quantity.
Handmade in Italy
We follow the traditional Italian manufacturing process, where a very important part of the process is still made and crafted by hand in a very special place in northern Italy, surrounded by vineyards and nature
High quality materials
Acetate made in Italy
Acetate is the main material used for the manufacturing of Folc sunglasses, a material of plant origin that comes from cotton and wood dust. It has amazing qualities for performing incredible colours and high quality finishings in our glasses. We produce all models with high-quality Italian acetate from the renowned Italian houses of Mazzucchelli and LAES. Our metal components for the frames are made in Germany and Italy.
Sun lens produced in Italy by Cal Zeiss
All folc eyewear solar lenses are of solid and gradient colours and they are produced by the German company Carl Zeiss, lenses offering the best clarity and UV protection against sunlight and glare. All our lenses strictly cover European (CE), American and Australian regulations.
Proximity and locality
We source everything as local and close as we possibly can.
Local artists and creators
Barcelona and Spain have an incredible network of creative people, this is why we develop all our image world with local artists, photographers, stylists, filmmakers and producers.
Production and sourcing
All the materials and components for manufacturing our collections of sunglasses are sourced in Italy and manufactured in Italy, keeping distances the closest as we can, and reducing our environmental print.
All the publicity material we produce is printed in the same neighbourhood where our studio is based, supporting and pushing for the local industrial network that the Poblenou neighbourhood used to be famous for during the 70’s.
Sustainable and ethical process of manufacturing
Small collections, limited productions, waste consciousness.
We develop small, solid and curated collections each year, released in small productions, avoiding as much as possible to create over stocks and material waste. For this reason, we purchase directly all the materials and lenses to confirm the origin of the materials and adjust to the minimum the amount of waste.
Proximity and ethical work
We work directly and very closely with four Italian manufacturers, developing together our collections of quality eyewear.
Our products are created using fair and ethical production methods, attempting to be as local as possible. The skilled craftsman working at these Italian factories have a beautifully detailed and extensive knowledge of the eyewear making process and enjoy working within safe conditions that abide to the high quality of European health, safety and standards laws for manufacturing in the European Union.
