The global eyewear and eyecare show MIDO took place in Milan from 23 to 25 February, 2019. Innovation was the common thread among the Group’s Luxottica and Essilor booths, located in the Fashion District and Lens pavilions, respectively.

Luxottica previewed an innovative concept that allows eyewear consumers to interact digitally with the company’s entire catalogue of products inside the store of any optometrist or optician. At the heart of this new experience is a smart shopper where users can explore Luxottica’s collections and brands in an intuitive way, as well as virtually wear any model appearing in the catalogue thanks to augmented reality and advanced proprietary virtual mirroring technologies.

For the first time in an optical store context, consumers will be able to customize their Ray-Ban and Oakley models through an interactive screen, choosing color, frames, lenses, temples, tips and cases or requesting engravings and decorations to make the eyewear selection a very personal experience.

The new digital assortment completes the process of digitizing the group’s in-store communications in recent years. There are now about twenty thousand digital windows installed in Luxottica’s own stores and in its customers’ optical stores all over the world.

Luxottica is also innovating the way new collections are presented to wholesale customers in its showrooms and stores, combining traditional physical samples with a larger and endless digital collection. Following the recent introduction of "digital sample bags", which adapt the Group's entire product catalogue onto tablet devices, Luxottica unveiled the new "digital showroom" concept at MIDO. It presented an interactive and immersive experience for discovering Luxottica products through high-definition screens, multimedia content inspired by brand campaigns and storytelling, and virtual simulations of the spaces in store. The collections are organized into "digital couvettes" to facilitate the interaction with every single model and finalize the purchasing processes. Each frame appears on screen as if it were real thanks to the use of high-definition real-time rendering and navigable 360-degree technology that can be enlarged to magnify every detail.

Besides highlighting the latest innovations and digital solutions, the Luxottica booth offered to its visitors the chance to immerse in the world of its eyewear brands and collections, including proprietary brands such as Ray-Ban, Oakley, Vogue Eyewear, Persol, Oliver Peoples and Alain Mikli as well as licensed brands including Giorgio Armani, Chanel Dolce&Gabbana, Prada, Valentino and Versace.

Essilor also placed consumers and eye care professionals at the heart and center of its presence at MIDO. Alongside the presentation of the latest solutions and collections of its brands (including Transitions, Bolon, FGXI and many more – whereas Costa and Bolon were also present at the Luxottica Days in downtown Milan), Essilor shined a spotlight on some of the latest technologies and digital solutions designed to provide an unparalleled customer and consumer experience.

At the Essilor Sun Solution stand, visitors enjoyed a unique sensorial experience. Equipped in Kolor Up lenses, that act like an equalizer to enhance the perception of pure primary colors, and immersed in a specialized cabin, customers experienced the real-life conditions of down-hilling on a mountain bike – wind in their faces, handlebar vibrating, the fresh smell of pine bark and the sounds of nature all around. Kolor Up lenses also reduce overall light to a comfortable level by modulating the light reaching the retina and the wavelengths of primary colors received by photoreceptors in the eyes. Thanks to this unique offering, designers and sporting eyewear professionals were able to test the quality of the Essilor Sun Solution lenses and experience the value they can add to their current sunwear products.

Essilor Instruments took the opportunity of MIDO to introduce its Vision-R^TM 800 phoropter to the Italian market. Vision-R^TM 800 marks a new era of refraction: through continuous power changes, this revolutionary technology makes refraction more precise, easier to perform for the practitioner and more comfortable for the patients, who can ultimately benefit from visual solutions more finely attuned to their needs. Another technology showcased at the Essilor stand was Retina 800, a fully automatic, digital, high-quality retinal imaging solution which opens the door to artificial intelligence and telemedicine for the diagnosis of retina-related pathologies.

Through its subsidiary Satisloh, Essilor also presented a series of digital solutions for prescription laboratories of all sizes. Solutions included the fast, expandable and affordable lens manufacturing platform, Metro Lab, a complete solution for regional express production for small to mid-size labs, including surfacing, coating, and finishing; MES-360 Software, which enables labs to leverage their data to improve efficiency and productivity; and Lab 4.0 Solutions, which brings smart manufacturing to the optical industry and enables businesses to establish a true industrialized lens manufacturing facility.