Traction Productions by eye size: a French brand that names its frames

Traction Productions is a French eyewear brand, made in the Jura, the part of eastern France where French eyewear has been made for well over a century. Its own site says two things plainly: 100% made in France, and depuis 1872. Every Traction frame we hold is $590, and every one is new and sealed.

That is the short answer for anyone searching for Traction Productions glasses or Traction Productions frames. Here is what an optician sees on the tray. We hold 15 frames across 11 model names. Thirteen are eyeglasses and two are sunglasses. The eye sizes run from 35mm to 55mm, and the frames divide into nine in acetate, four in metal and two that use both.

Two things stand out. The first is the bridge. Across the fifteen frames it runs from 17mm to 30mm, and the widest bridges sit on the narrowest fronts. The two Leonide frames, one of them the Rousnake, are 38-30-142: a 38mm eye with a 30mm bridge. The Corbusier is 35-27-135. Those are small lenses set a long way apart, and they fit a face that most narrow frames do not.

The second is the naming. Nothing here is a reference number. Every frame carries a model name and a colour name, and both tend to be words rather than codes: Amazone in Blaze, Marcel in Bleurock, Xylo in Chocomeleze. The next chapter is about how that works, because it is the thing people find hardest when they come to order.

This guide goes through the fifteen by eye size, because eye size is the first number that decides whether a frame will fit. The table below lists every one of them with its measurements and its price.

Traction Productions names its frames. There is no reference number to quote back to us; there is a model name and, after it, a colour name. The model is the shape: Riviera, Xylo, Almos. The colour is the plate or the finish: Tornade, Chocomeleze, Amarine. Put the two together and you have the frame.

The colour names are the part that catches people out, because they are invented compounds rather than descriptions. Bleurock is the blue and amber acetate of the Marcel. Rousnake is a burgundy snake pattern on one of the two Leonide frames. Meleze is the black and green metal of the Wafu; Chocomeleze is the green and brown metal of one Xylo. Two of the names point at tortoiseshell without saying so in English: the Leonide Ecaille / Ivoire is tortoiseshell and ivory acetate, and the Almos Ecanuit is a light tortoiseshell with metal. If you cannot picture the colour from the name, you are meant to look.

The brand's own site groups its range into named collections, among them Retro, TraXion X and Traction Femme, and lists models by name in the same way, with several colours under each. The same colour name can appear on more than one model: the site shows a Xylo in Oranoir, and the frame we hold in Oranoir is the Nyugat. So a colour name is not tied to one shape. Give us both halves.

One frame in our stock breaks the pattern. The Corbusier's colour is recorded as a figure, 34, rather than a word, and we list it by what it is: blue tortoise. It is the only Traction frame on this page whose colour arrives as a number.

For ordering, the rule is simple. Model name, then colour name, then the eye size if you know it. Riviera Tornade, 47. That is enough for us to take the right frame off the shelf, and enough to be sure the frame you saw is the frame you get, because two colours of one model can look very different on a face.

Eye size is the first number to look at, and in this range it runs from 35mm to 55mm. That is a 20mm spread, and it is not evenly filled. There is a cluster at the narrow end, a crowded middle and a small wide end, with a gap between the first two that is worth knowing about before you start.

Three frames sit at 38mm or under: the Corbusier at 35mm and the two Leonides at 38mm. Then nothing at all until 47mm. If the glasses you wear now measure in the low forties across the eye, there is no Traction frame here at that number, and you will be choosing between something noticeably smaller and something noticeably larger.

The middle holds most of the stock. Eight frames sit between 47mm and 52mm: the two Riviera frames at 47mm, one of them the Tornade, the Marcel and the Wafu at 48mm, the two Almos at 50mm, the Angele at 51mm and the Amazone at 52mm. Four frames make the wide end: the Nyugat at 53mm, the two Xylo frames at 54mm and the Qhasar at 55mm.

The other figure to compare is the width across the front. It is two eye sizes plus the bridge, so it is approximate, but it is the quickest way to hold a new frame against an old one. Here it runs from about 97mm on the Corbusier to about 128mm on the Nyugat. Measure the pair you wear now from the outer edge of one lens to the outer edge of the other, and you have a number to match.

Across the front does not follow eye size exactly. The Qhasar has the widest lens at 55mm but a narrow 17mm bridge, so it comes to about 127mm. The Nyugat has a 53mm lens and a 22mm bridge, and comes to about 128mm. The smaller lens makes the wider frame. That is the bridge doing the work, and it is why two frames a millimetre apart on paper can sit quite differently on a face.

Nine of the fifteen frames are acetate, four are metal, and two use both. The brand's own site is brief about method and firm about place: a savoir-faire made in France, since 1872, with innovative processes, and 100% made in France, made in the Jura. What follows is what the material does on the face, which is the part that matters when you are choosing.

Acetate is cut from a solid plate. Our listings for these frames make the point over and over: the colour is in the material rather than painted onto it, the plate is cut, milled and polished, and the pattern runs through the full thickness of the rim. That is why a tortoiseshell acetate has depth in it when you turn it in the light, and why no two plates come out identical. It also means an acetate frame has some weight, and holds an adjustment once an optician has set it.

The acetate frames here are the Qhasar in black and red patterned acetate, both Rivieras, both Leonides, the Corbusier, the Marcel, the Amazone and the Angele. They are also where the deeper patterns are: the snake pattern of the Leonide Rousnake, the red and patterned red of the Riviera Tornade.

The four metal frames are the Wafu, the Nyugat and the two Xylos, and they do a different job. A metal rim can be thin and still be strong, so the frame takes up less of the face than its size suggests. The Xylo is 54mm across the eye, which is wide, and it holds a rectangular line at a thickness acetate could not. The Wafu is the only round frame here in metal, at 48-20-140.

The two Almos frames use both materials, among them the Amarine. Our listings put it simply: the metal holds the line, the acetate carries the colour, and the join between the two is the detail worth looking at. The Amarine is blue patterned acetate with metal; the Ecanuit is light tortoiseshell with metal. The same 50-23-135 frame, two very different faces.

Four shapes, and they do not spread evenly across the size range. Seven frames are round, five are cat-eye, two are rectangular and one is oval. Where each shape sits is the striking part. Every round frame here is 48mm or under. Every cat-eye is 50mm or over. The two rectangular frames are both 54mm. Shape and size travel together in this range, which means choosing a shape partly chooses the size for you.

The round frames are the Corbusier at 35mm, the two Leonides at 38mm, the two Rivieras at 47mm, and the Marcel and Wafu at 48mm. A round lens on a narrow front is the classic small-face frame, and it tends to suit a face with some angle to it, a defined jaw or a straight brow, because the curve of the rim plays against that. On a rounder face it does the opposite, and a wider or more angular front usually sits better.

The five cat-eyes are the two Almos at 50mm, the Angele at 51mm, the Nyugat at 53mm and the Qhasar at 55mm. A cat-eye lifts the outer corner, so the widest part of the front sits high. That suits a face widest at the cheekbone, and it gives a longer face something horizontal to work against. The Qhasar at 55-17-145 is the largest of them.

The two Xylo frames are the only rectangular ones, both 54-19-140 with a 39mm lens. A straight top rim on a wide front is the least demanding shape here: it reads as an ordinary pair of glasses and suits most faces, which is why we hold it in two colours, Antharou in red and black and Chocomeleze in green and brown.

The Amazone is the one oval, and one of only two sunglasses on this page, at 52-19-145 in tortoiseshell acetate with brown gradient lenses. An oval is a round frame with some of the top and bottom taken off. It fits roughly where a round frame would, but takes up less height on the face.

Colour runs in patterns too. Nine of the fifteen listings name two colours in the one frame. Black appears on four of them and never on its own: with red on the Qhasar and the Xylo Antharou, with orange on the Nyugat, with green on the Wafu.

The bridge decides where a frame rests on your nose, and in this range it does more work than usual. Across the fifteen frames it runs from 17mm on the Qhasar to 30mm on the two Leonides. Four frames sit at 19mm, four at 23mm, and the rest are scattered between.

The unusual part is that the widest bridges are on the narrowest fronts. The Leonide is a 38mm eye with a 30mm bridge. The Corbusier is a 35mm eye with a 27mm bridge. That looks wrong written down, and it is not. A small face often comes with a short nose that does not stand far out, so a frame settles low on it, and lower down every nose is wider. A 30mm bridge finds something to rest against down there. A 19mm bridge on the same nose would sit high where the nose is thin, find little, and slide until the lower rims met the cheeks.

The other end works the same way in reverse. The Qhasar's 17mm bridge is the narrowest here and it sits under the widest lens, 55mm. That frame is made to sit high, on a nose that stands well out from the face. If you have been told your bridge is narrow, it is the one to look at first. The Marcel is at the other extreme among the mid-sized frames, a 48mm eye on a 24mm bridge, about 120mm across.

Temples run from 135mm to 148mm. Six frames are 145mm, three are 140mm, three are 135mm, two are 142mm, and the Marcel alone is 148mm. This matters less than people expect. Both 140mm and 145mm reach the ear on most adult heads, and the difference is how much of the arm curls behind it, which an optician sets with gentle heat.

Lens height is the depth of the lens from top rim to bottom rim, and here it runs from 33mm on the Corbusier to 45mm on the Marcel, with the Wafu next deepest at 43mm. Five frames sit at 39mm and three at 40mm. That figure says little about how a frame looks and a great deal about what lens can go in it, which is the next chapter.

We ship frames. We do not sell prescription lenses online. The lens goes in at our Arlington or Dumfries shop, or at your own optician, and there are three things worth checking before the frame arrives rather than after.

The first is lens height. A single-vision lens fits almost any depth. A progressive needs room between the top of the lens and the bottom, because the reading part sits low in it, and a shallow frame gives the lens less to work with. In this range the shallowest is the Corbusier at 33mm, then the two Leonides and the Angele at 37mm, then the Qhasar at 38mm. The deepest are the Marcel at 45mm and the Wafu at 43mm. If you wear a progressive and you are drawn to the narrow end, take the numbers to whoever writes your prescription and ask first.

The second is the width across the front. A lens cannot correct a frame that does not fit, and the across figure, two eye sizes plus the bridge and therefore approximate, is the quickest comparison you can make. Here it runs from about 97mm on the Corbusier to about 128mm on the Nyugat. If the pair you wear now measures about 120mm across and sits well, the Marcel at 48-24-148 comes to about 120mm and is the closest match on this page.

The third is what is in the frame when it arrives. All fifteen are listed as new and sealed. The thirteen eyeglass frames come with demonstration lenses fitted: clear blanks with no prescription in them, there to hold the shape, and thrown away when your own lenses go in. The two sunglasses come with their own tinted lenses, the Amazone with brown gradient and the Angele with brown. A prescription in a sunglass frame is a job for an optician, and the tinted lens that came with it is replaced.

Take or send the frame to your optician with your prescription and your pupillary distance. Nothing about the frames on this page changes that process, and none of the measurements here is a substitute for an eye test.

Every Traction Productions frame on this page is $590, and all fifteen are listed as new and sealed. The price does not move with size or material: the 35mm Corbusier in acetate and the 54mm Xylo in metal are the same money, and so is everything between them.

We hold fifteen frames across eleven model names. Four of those models appear twice in different colours, Leonide, Riviera, Xylo and Almos, and in each case the two are the same frame with a different plate or finish. The Riviera is 47-23-145 whether it is Tornade, in red and patterned red, or Purple, in tortoiseshell and purple. The Xylo is 54-19-140 whether it is Antharou or Chocomeleze. The Almos is 50-23-135 either way. Choose the fit first and the colour second, because the fit is identical.

Our listings make one point about acetate worth repeating here. No two plates are identical, so a colour is never exactly repeated. Each of these frames is a single object, and when it sells it is gone. That is true of every frame in the shop, and easiest to forget with a patterned acetate.

If you know what you want, the model name and the colour name are enough to order: Angele Vermillon, Almos Ecanuit, Wafu Meleze. If you do not, work from the stock list on this page. Find the eye size nearest the glasses you wear now. Compare the width across the front. Then look at the bridge, because that is the number that decides whether the frame stays where you put it. Those three settle most of it.

If you are near either shop, come and try them on. Fifteen minutes with the frames on your face answers questions no measurement will, and both our Arlington and Dumfries shops fit lenses. If you are not near, order the frame and take it to your own optician. We ship the frame; the lens is fitted where you are.