Certottica: young sculptors of eyewear and jewelry

Training, design and marketing: the ingredients to counteract the eyewear crisis. According to market research carried out regularly by Certottica, these are the elements at which to aim and around which courses should be based to meet the real needs of the entrepreneurial world.

One of the outcomes is the “eyewear and jewelry design technician” course, which was held by the Longarone Institute with Fondazione per l’Università e l’Alta Cultura and ended recently.

The course combined two essential elements for the success of a company on the global market: design and marketing. Not just eyewear, but also jewelry in the multi-district and knowledge communication connotation that has always distinguished Certottica’s activities. Always being open to the world and enhancing the territory’s excellences. This is the direction taken by the Longarone Institute and this course also hit the target: 7 of the 12 participants found work with the most significant companies in the optics and jewelry segment.

“It is an important initiative for training professionals who are able to provide the excellence that has always distinguished Italian style”, stated Luigino Boito, general director of Certottica. “Aiming at training means aiming at quality. A second-rate product will not be successful on the market: competition based on price is misplaced logic for companies that must, instead, aim at product quality, safety and design”.

The course is a lifebelt for emerging from the eyewear district’s recurring crises which have been the cause of many deaths and injuries in the Belluno area. This crisis is drastically reshaping all relationships within the eyewear industry, not only in Belluno but also throughout the country. A sector that is one of the natural hearts of Italy’s manufacturing industry.

“To understand the extent of this appalling crisis, suffice it to say that from 2007 to December 31, 2009, 1,391 jobs were lost in the eyewear industry in the Belluno area”, Luigino Boito explained. “In 2007, there were 12,800 people employed: 800 jobs were lost in 2008 and about 600 in 2009. The number of companies dropped from 485 to 396. To put a stop to this, we must aim at training, product design, research and innovation. It is no longer possible for anyone to remain encaged behind obsolete logic”.