French eyewear brands: glasses made in France, brand by brand

Two facts get run together when people look for French eyewear: where a brand comes from, and where its frames are made. This guide goes by the second. Of the brands we stock, Henau, Sabine Be and Traction Productions make their frames in France, and their listings carry a Made in France tag. The table further down is built from that tag, so it shows what is in stock today and drops a frame the moment it sells.

Sabine Be and Traction Productions are French on both counts. Henau is not: it is a Belgian brand, designed in Belgium, whose frames are made by artisans in France.

Two other brands we stock began in France. Cartier was founded in Paris in 1847 and added eyewear in 1983. J.F. Rey was founded in Marseille in 1995. Our listings do not record where either brand's frames are made, and we would rather leave a brand out than guess, so neither is in the table below.

French frame-making grew up in the Jura mountains, in the east of the country. Morez, which the Jura's tourism office calls the capital of French eyewear, dates its metal spectacles to 1796 and the skill of a master nail-maker, and the town keeps a museum of eyewear that tells the story.

Plastic frames came by a different road. In Oyonnax, further south in the high Jura, people made wooden combs in winter alongside farming from the late eighteenth century, worked horn through the nineteenth, and took up celluloid in 1878, when it had just been invented in the United States. When short hair came into fashion in the 1920s, the comb makers turned to toys, fashion accessories and spectacles. The family company behind Traction Productions followed a similar path: it made hair ornaments before it turned to eyewear in 1930.

What that history leaves is a way of working rather than a single look. Most of the frames on this page are acetate, a plastic made as a sheet with the colour running through its whole thickness. A frame is cut from the plate, milled and polished, so the colour is in the material rather than painted on, and the pattern shows on the cut edge as well as the front. No two plates are identical, so a colour is never repeated exactly. Acetate also holds an adjustment once an optician has set it with gentle heat, which is how a frame bought at a distance is made to sit on your face.

Henau was founded in Belgium in 1986 by Michel Henau, a trained artist who became an optician, and grew with the designer Marc Delagrange, whose first Henau collection was shown at Silmo in 2000. Delagrange still sketches each model by hand. The brand's own site is plain about why the making happens elsewhere: it handed the assembly of its frames to specialists in France because, in its words, that simply is where the best talents are. Belgium remains its home base.

What Henau is known for is the material. Its frames are cut from rare acetate plates, often strongly coloured, and our listings show the range: crystals, marbles, horns and saturated solids. The Henau frames we list are all acetate, and their shapes lean round and geometric, with faceted fronts among the geometric ones and a few cat-eyes and aviators besides.

In our listings Henau runs from the mid forties to the high fifties in the eye. Its smallest rounds, at a 46mm eye, come with bridges from 19mm to 22mm, so you can keep the lens width and choose the bridge for your nose: the wider ones suit a wide or low nose, where a narrow bridge would perch and slide. The Henau fit guide takes the range model by model.

Sabine Be was launched in 2014 by Sabine Bégault-Vagner, who grew up in a family of opticians in Orléans and worked in her mother's optical shop for twenty-five years before designing her own collection. The frames are made by hand in France. The brand found its first following in the United States.

It is known for strong colour and unexpected shapes. Most of the Sabine Be frames we list are acetate, often in two-part colours, stripes and translucents, and a few are thin metal or acetate with metal. The names are a system of their own: almost every model is Be plus a word, such as Be Addict or Be Swag, and a second word marks a variant. In our listings Slim has meant the thin metal version of a shape and Mini a scaled-down front, and the brand keeps a Mini Be range on its own site.

In our listings Sabine Be leans small, with eye sizes from the low forties to the low fifties. Several of its smallest frames pair a 42mm or 43mm eye with a 26mm bridge, which comes to about 110mm to 112mm across the front: a narrow frame overall, with the lenses set well apart. The Sabine Be small-face guide explains Mini, Slim, Line and Stripe by eye size, and the narrow frames page gathers small fronts from every brand.

Traction Productions is made in the Jura by a family company founded in 1872. It made hair ornaments before it turned to eyewear in 1930, and five generations of the Gros family have run it. Thierry Gros launched Traction Productions in 1989, mixing California modernity with French refinement. The brand's own site says 100% made in France, and dates the business depuis 1872, since 1872.

Its frames carry names rather than reference numbers, and so do its colours, which are often invented compounds: Bleurock, Chocomeleze, Rousnake, Oranoir. The same colour name can appear on more than one model, so quote both halves, model then colour, when you ask about a frame. The frames we list mix acetate, metal and the two together, and include sunglasses as well as optical frames.

In our listings Traction covers the widest spread of sizes of the three brands, from an eye in the mid thirties to one in the mid fifties. At the small end it pairs a small lens with a very wide bridge, as much as 30mm on a 38mm eye, for a small face on a short nose. Among them, the rounds are the small ones and the cat-eyes the large ones, so choosing a shape partly chooses the size. The Traction Productions fit guide goes through the range by eye size.

Each row in the table gives the three numbers usually printed inside a temple arm, eye size, bridge and temple, then the lens height and the width across the front. That width is two eye sizes plus the bridge, so it is approximate, but it is the quickest way to hold a new frame against one you already own. Measure your current pair from the outer edge of one lens to the outer edge of the other and look for rows within a few millimetres. The frame size guide explains the numbers.

Look at the bridge next. Across these brands it runs from the mid teens to 30mm. A small lens on a wide bridge settles low on a short nose; a narrow bridge holds a larger front high on a nose that stands out. Two frames with the same width across can sit quite differently.

We ship frames only. No prescription lenses, single-vision or progressive, are sold online. Lenses are fitted by an optician, ours in Arlington or Dumfries or your own, who confirms with your measurements and prescription whether a frame suits the lens you need. Lens height is the figure to take to that conversation: a shallow front gives a progressive lens less room than a deep one, so ask before you commit. The lens guide covers what to bring.

Shipping within the US is free and insured. Returns are accepted within 7 days of delivery, with a 15% restocking fee, so check the numbers before you order rather than after. Frames made elsewhere have their own pages: made in Italy and made in Japan, with a guide to Japanese eyewear brands.