CUTLER AND GROSS: bold steps forward, new collaborations
- By Clodagh Norton
At the British eyewear company Cutler and Gross, 2024 has been an important year for new developments in retail and a fresh brand positioning, alongside collection announcements and fresh collaborations. Jack Dooley, Group CEO since early 2024 is ensuring that the company moves ahead with a strategic focus and an outward-looking attitude. He told 20/20 Europe where his ambitions now lie.
Q: Since you became CEO in February 2024, what would you say have been the key moments for CUTLER AND GROSS as a brand, and where is your focus now?
A: The opening of our new flagship store in Soho, NY has been the highlight of the year for us, and the new design will serve as a template for our enhanced image and brand positioning going forward. It’s the culmination of the revamp of our visual identity, further cementing our commitment to the luxury eyewear segment.
We are now focusing on our operations, processes and service level agreements and exploring how we can improve our customer satisfaction and product offering. Over the years, we have developed a reputation of being a fair company that cares deeply for our customers.
We want to further this in every way. It takes a certain courage and strength to be kind, and it’s one of the things we do best across our teams.
My goal is to channel this ethos across the business in the way we treat our staff, suppliers and partners. Many of our people have been with us for decades, they truly are the lifeblood of our company, and they hold the key to our ongoing success. I consider myself extremely privileged to call them not just colleagues but, in a lot of cases, genuine friends.
Lastly, we are busy finalising a new titanium line, fully made in Japan, which will complete our product offering and compete against the top titanium frames in the industry. It has been two years in the making due to the extreme technicality and attention to detail required; we want to create something truly worthy of the Cutler and Gross moniker. Going to Japan was a no-brainer for us as they are the masters of high-end metalworking. The initial prototypes have exceeded our expectations. The titanium line, “Knightsbridge Green” should be ready for Silmo 2025, and we are very excited to present it to our stores and agents at our annual Sales Meeting next year.
Q: The store opening in New York this year has been an important re-branding…offering an interior that is a completely fresh architect-designed one. Please comment on this new direction.
A: Our retail operations have always been the chrysalis of our brand image, ever since our two founders opened a store back in 1969. With an expansion plan in mind, we decided we needed to distil the brand identity to move forward. London in the late 60s was a counter-cultural melting pot of art and music and we were keen to have that resonate throughout the design process.
We worked with New York-based architectural firm Leong Leong and are very proud of the outcome. The store nods to London’s private members clubs from the 60s, with hand-crafted touchpoints throughout. Our wholesale booth at the trade shows, branded materials and campaigns echo this design language, giving a unique ambience and immersive experience. The relaxed atmosphere created by these spaces allows us to host customers in our whiskey and gin bars and provokes a social setting which we hope our founders Tony Gross and Graham Cutler would be proud of.
Q: Explain the roll out of the new retail design for the Cutler and Gross shops. Are you opening new shops as well this year?
A: The design of our New York store will now serve as a blueprint for refurbishing our existing stores, which we plan to roll out in the next year. On top of that, we are actively looking to expand our store presence in London and New York, but it all depends on finding the right architectural sites.
Q: Collaborations have become a new and successful focus at Cutler and Gross in recent years. How many collections have you now released with The Great Frog and where is this collection seeing particular success?
Tony Gross was the pioneer of eyewear collaborations back in the 90s, and we are proud to carry on this tradition. Our brand has a long and storied history of collaboration, from Comme Des Garcons to Maison Margiela and, of course, The Great Frog.
Our partnership with The Great Frog started as a one-shot co-branding activity on some sunglasses. However, due to the huge success of the first collection, it has developed into a full-blown eyewear license. It has been a very organic thing, most of it conceived over a few drinks in Ronnie Scott’s and some after-hours sketching on bar mats, then honed later between the brands’ design studios. Our first collection campaign featured Iggy Pop, the second starred Georgia May Jagger and the third promises to be even more iconic.
Our main success with The Great Frog has come in the USA, where the bold shapes and irreverent silver detailing resonate well. Launching in September, the new Gothic Realism collection will introduce some smaller sizing and more muted colours.
Collaborations are a brilliant way to cross-pollinate customer bases and creativity. With this in mind, we have also signed a major licensing agreement with Breitling (launching next year). We are delighted to partner with such a giant in the luxury watch world. It is a daunting task to produce a frame encompassing their heritage and design language, but one we are confident we can deliver. This will be a co-branded product featuring completely new shapes, specialised lenses and materials.
Q: Tell us about the new collaboration you are launching this season?
A: We are launching a collaboration with English heritage brand Globetrotter. They have designed an exquisite collector’s hardcase alongside leather slipcases, which will be available in highly limited quantities online and in-store. Customised to our exact requirements, Globetrotter have also created a suitcase to hold our acetate, hardware and lens options for our Bespoke in-store appointments. We have a real synergy and affinity with Globetrotter, and so it has been a pleasure to work with them and visit their production facility on the outskirts of London.
This is a very exciting foray into accessories for us, and a collaboration we plan on strengthening and adding to in the coming years. We believe that if you want to produce luxury accessories outside of your field of expertise, then partner with true artisans with heritage and know-how in that sector. And that’s what we’ve done.
Q: At Silmo, which new collections will be on show? What would you say will be the highlights this year?
A: We are launching Cutler and Gross’s Autumn/Winter 2024 collection: Hollywood Hideaway. This is a stunning collection with bold acetate shapes inspired by the golden age of Tinseltown. The highlight for me is the 1414, an oversized square milled from 9mm acetate with an ornate metal core wire. It is based on a vintage Cutler and Gross frame from the 1970s worn by Grace Jones. For me, it encapsulates the incredible work being done by our Creative Director Alessandro Marcer and his skill in taking elements from our archive and transforming them into bold new creations.
For The Great Frog, we are launching the Gothic Realism collection, which looks to the 19th century when writers such as Bram Stoker blurred the lines between fact and fiction.
This tradition lives on in gothic comics and novels, which in turn inspired bands and artists such as Kiss, Alice Cooper, The Cure, and Blondie. Personally, the highlight is The Medusa, a huge butterfly frame with a carved, flamed frontal. It features a Viper emblem cast in sterling silver and plated in 24K gold.
