Japanese eyewear brands: DITA, Matsuda and Blake Kuwahara

Three of the brands we sell online make their frames in Japan: DITA, Matsuda and Blake Kuwahara. Every listing we have from them is tagged Made in Japan, and our Made in Japan page gathers them in one place. No other brand we list online is recorded as made there.

Only one of the three began in Japan. Matsuda began as the label of the Tokyo fashion designer Mitsuhiro Matsuda, whose first eyewear collection appeared in 1989. DITA is a Californian brand: its heritage page gives 1995 as its founding year, its site gives its headquarters as Aliso Viejo, California, and the same heritage page says DITA began to focus its production in Japan in 1999. Blake Kuwahara is the collection of a Los Angeles designer who, according to his own site, holds a doctorate in optometry from UC Berkeley and launched it in autumn 2015. Our listings describe every Blake Kuwahara frame as handcrafted in Japan.

So a Japanese eyewear brand can mean two things: a brand from Japan, or a brand whose frames are made in Japan. This guide covers both, as far as our own shelves go, and keeps to what each brand says about itself and what our listings record. The French eyewear brands guide does the same for the brands we sell that are made in France.

A made-in line names the country where a frame was made. It does not name the workshop, and it does not tell you where the frame was designed. DITA's craftsmanship page says it finishes all its frames in Japan, and that it manufactures in some of the world's oldest and most respected eyewear factories, including factories owned by the same families for generations. It does not name them, and neither do we.

Matsuda names a town rather than a factory. Its site says each design is crafted by hand in the renowned eyewear workshops of Sabae, Japan. Sabae is in Fukui Prefecture, and the prefecture's official guide says Fukui makes about 95% of Japan-made frames, and that a frame there goes through more than 200 processes. That is the industry most Japanese frames come out of.

What the label cannot tell you is whether a frame will fit. A frame made with great care in the wrong width is still the wrong width, which is why the tables below give each frame's measurements and why our frame size guide exists. Nor does the label say what every part is made of. Blake Kuwahara, for instance, says it uses nylon-coated stainless steel screws to keep its frames in adjustment. If you are choosing a frame because of a metal allergy, ask about the hinges, screws and pads as well as the front.

Titanium is the metal many people connect with Japanese frames, and it is the metal in the DITA and Matsuda frames we list. DITA's FAQ describes titanium as approximately 30% stronger and 50% lighter than steel, highly resistant to corrosion, nickel free and hypoallergenic, and says it can be made flexible through alloying, as in beta-titanium. Its craftsmanship page says DITA uses one of the highest grades of beta-titanium, which it calls light, durable and extremely flexible, and a third the weight of steel.

In our listings the metal on DITA frames is titanium, either as the whole frame or as the metal half of an acetate and titanium front. Matsuda's listings read the same way: titanium on its own, or titanium with acetate. Matsuda's own site names a wider range of metals in its work: titanium, stainless steel, sterling silver and 18k solid gold. Nearly all the Blake Kuwahara frames we have listed are acetate, so titanium is not the reason to choose that brand.

Titanium is also slower to work than steel. It springs back when it is bent, and at welding heat it reacts with the air, so joints have to be made under a shielding gas. Those are properties of the metal rather than claims by any brand, and they go some way to explaining the time a fine titanium frame takes. What the work buys is a front that can be very fine and still hold a lens, and that weighs less than it looks.

One note on colour names. DITA's FAQ says titanium is dark silver in its natural form and can be plated in a wide variety of colours. So a name such as White Gold, Rose Gold or Brushed Gold on a titanium frame is the name of its finish in our listings. Read it as a colour, not as a statement about the metal underneath.

All three brands describe their frames as slow to make, and each gives its own figures. They are the brands' figures, not ours, and they describe each brand's process in general rather than any one frame on our shelves.

DITA says a single frame can take as many as 350 separate production steps over eight months. It polishes acetate by tumbling it slowly in genuine hand-cut bamboo chips, and says its craftsmen run their hands over each frame's surfaces in search of the slightest imperfection, shaping and polishing until the frame meets its standard.

Matsuda puts 250 steps, 71 hours and 13 craftsmen against a frame, and says a design can take up to two years to bring to life. Its acetate, it says, is cured for over three months before construction, and each piece is hand-finished by master polishers who have apprenticed for ten years.

Blake Kuwahara's figures are about its laminated fronts. The brand says the inner and outer silhouettes are milled as separate pieces and go through a two-month lamination process, and that another six months is needed to mill, polish and produce each frame. Texture is brushed onto the front by hand with a metal brush and colour is rubbed on by hand. The acetate end pieces are mitred at 45 degrees to hide the break between temple and end piece, a trick the brand says it took from finely crafted furniture.

Finish is the part a photograph flattens. Depth of polish, a brushed texture, a clean mitre at the hinge: these show in the hand and under a lamp, and that is the fair place to judge them. Whether they are worth paying for is a separate question, and are designer frames worth it takes it on directly.

DITA's heritage page describes its range as running from bold character frames to new readings of classic shapes, and marks 2002 as the year of the Flight-Series, an all-titanium frame it describes as a thicker version of the classic aviator. The DITA frames we have listed have been of three kinds: titanium alone; acetate and titanium together, where the metal holds the line and the acetate carries the colour; and, less often, acetate alone.

On sizing, DITA's FAQ gives the numbers as LW/DBL-TL: lens width, the distance between the lenses, which is the bridge, and temple length. The DITA frames we have listed have run from 48mm to 58mm across the eye, with bridges from 13mm to 23mm, which is a wide spread. That makes eye size alone a poor guide with this brand: a small lens on a wide bridge can end up about as wide across the front as a larger lens on a narrow one. Add the two lens widths and the bridge for an approximate width across the front, and compare it with a pair you already wear. Temples have run from 138mm to 145mm. The table below shows the spread as it stands today.

The DITA fit guide goes through the sizes frame by frame, and DITA vs Oliver Peoples compares it with another brand that began in Los Angeles. Every DITA frame online is on the DITA page.

Matsuda is the one brand of the three that began in Japan, and its site calls its makers masters of metal. It points to details such as its side shields and pince-nez bridges, and says every hinge, temple and component is designed for the collection it belongs to. Its Heritage collection is described as eyewear inspired by the Matsuda archive. The Matsuda frames we have listed have included titanium and acetate in one front, faceted geometric fronts, and squares and ovals in acetate alone.

On sizing, Matsuda's FAQ gives the numbers in the usual order: lens width, bridge size, temple length. The Matsuda frames we have listed have run small. Eye sizes have run from 43mm to 50mm, which comes to roughly 114mm to 122mm across the front, with bridges from 21mm to 28mm and lens heights from 32mm to 42mm. A wide bridge on a small lens sets the lenses further apart than the eye size suggests, so read both numbers. If the pair you wear now measures much more than about 125mm across the front, expect the Matsuda frames we have listed to feel small.

The Matsuda fit guide reads the model numbers and sizes in detail, and every Matsuda frame online is on the Matsuda page.

Blake Kuwahara's signature is a front built from two shapes. In the brand's words, an inner silhouette is encased in an unexpectedly fresh outer shape, and the two are laminated together as a frame within a frame. The brand also makes metal and combination frames, so not every model is built this way; the photographs show which are. Nearly all the Blake Kuwahara frames we have listed are acetate, which makes this the brand of the three for colour and layered form rather than titanium.

The brand's own page cites the Japanese idea of wabi-sabi, which celebrates the imperfections that give an object character, and says hand-brushing and lasers are used to give surfaces texture and deliberately irregular finishes. Its logo, set into the temple tip, is based on the designer's Japanese family crest, or kamon.

Some of the brand's own details are about fit. The brand says its acetate nose pads are 11mm tall against a standard of 7mm, for more surface area and a more comfortable fit, and that it adds an extra millimetre of crystal acetate to each temple tip for support. The Blake Kuwahara frames we have listed have run from 43mm to 55mm across the eye, roughly 112mm to 128mm across the front, with bridges from 16mm to 26mm. Several pair a small lens with a wide bridge, which tends to suit a small face with a broad nose bridge better than a narrow one. Temples have mostly been 145mm.

The Blake Kuwahara guide explains how the laminated front wears and which sizes suit which face, and every frame online is on the Blake Kuwahara page.

We sell frames only. We do not sell prescription lenses online, progressive lenses included. Lenses are fitted by an optician, in our Arlington or Dumfries shops or by your own, who takes your measurements and confirms whether a particular frame suits your prescription. Nothing on this page is a promise that a given frame will take a given prescription.

Two of the three brands say much the same on their own sites. DITA's FAQ says its frames can be fitted with prescription lenses, but that its website does not offer a prescription lens service. Matsuda's FAQ says it does not sell prescription lenses on its site, and that it is important to visit your optician in person to ensure the correct fit and lens.

Three things are worth raising with whoever fits the lenses. Lens height, the depth of the lens from top to bottom, which the tables give for every frame and which matters most if you wear progressives. Rimless fronts, where the lens is drilled and held at mounts rather than in a rim, which affects the choice of lens material. And sunglasses, which arrive with the brand's own tinted lenses: whether one can be reglazed to your prescription is a question for the optician before you order. The lens guide covers the fitting itself.

Shipping within the US is free and insured. Returns are accepted within 7 days of delivery, with a 15% restocking fee, so try a frame on the day it arrives. If you want a second opinion on size first, tell us the three numbers printed inside the arm of a pair that fits you, and we will say which frames here come close.