In the 15 years since Line Art Charmant’s inception, the brand’s collections have grown tremendously, and with Excellence Titan, the brand is sharing what it has achieved with its users in more than 100 countries around the world.
Charmant Group has been renowned worldwide for its pioneering work in the research and development of new technologies in the optical industry for over 65 years. By striving for perfection and its uncompromising high product quality, the Japanese company has developed into one of the most important producers and suppliers in the highly competitive international ophthalmic optics market. Chartmant Group wants to ensure that when people need eyewear, they have the option of glasses that offer ultimate comfort while safeguarding their vision. This is the challenge that all Charmant employees have been meeting successfully and happily since the company’s establishment a little over 65 years ago. It’s also why Charmant Group have grown into a leading eyewear manufacturer in both Japan and around the world.
Line Art by Charmant
With the aim of realising product excellence and responding to consumer demands, Line Art Charmant was launched in 2009 by Charmant Group. Line Art Charmant bestows frame comfort you have to feel to believe. Customers consistently express their surprise at the light touch, stability and impressive fit of Line Art Charmant frames. But lightness alone without a faultless fit is pointless. A key factor in superior eyewear development is maintaining lens position to enable good vision correction. Charmant Group initiated Line Art because the company wanted to offer a collection that offers all-round “ultimate wearing comfort.” From the soft embrace of the temples to stability behind the ears, company implemented its unique ideas right down to the finest details. In the 15 years since the arrival of Line Art Charmant, the collection has grown immensely and is currently made up of 6 temple lines sold in Europe and USA.
Today, Line Art frames are used by customers in more than 100 countries around the world. Customers who appreciate the superior comfort continue to buy their second and third pair of glasses, saying that they cannot do without Line Art models. The creation and growth of this valuable brand is undoubtedly the result of the labor of three special people. Hiroyuki Tada, who was responsible for the development of Line Art’s famous Excellence Titan, Yoshiko Mizuno, Creative Director of Line Art, and Hiroshi Nakamura, who was responsible for the development of the laser micro-source, can safely be said to have played the leading roles in Line Art’s story.
The key to Line Art’s comfort lies in the flexibility of the material and how it gently springs back, applying optimal pressure to lightly embrace the wearer’s head. When Charmant Group started the Line Art journey, no conventional metal alloy could provide what it was needed. It required something completely different and radical. The search for such a metal led the company to invent a totally new raw material. As a result, the Excellence Titan has emerged in all its glory.
The Creation of Excellence Titan
Every part of a Line Art frame reveals a story about the birth of the collection. Starting in 1995, Hiroyuki Tada spent two years studying the elasticity of titanium alloy at the Materials Science & Engineering Research Center at the University of Washington. In 2000, he began a joint development project on a new titanium alloy with the Institute of Materials Research at Tohoku University. The goal was to realise a new metal that incorporated gentleness and flexibility while maintaining the excellent properties of titanium. This process was much harder than could ever have been imagined. The team spent countless months investigating more than 200 compositions, seeking the right blend ratio of the alloy. After getting advice from the then-President of Tohoku University, the team had a breakthrough, finally discovering the right metal blending ratio that retained elasticity even after coating and plating. Line Art’s Excellence Titan was born.
Boasting outstanding lightness and give, Excellence Titan frames display amazing flexibility by stretching and returning to their original shape as they are put on and removed. With temples completely composed of Excellence Titan, Line Art frames grant wearers supreme, long-lasting comfort while keeping the corrective lenses securely in place. Going beyond comfort, the highly original Line Art design look contributes to the brand’s appeal. Temples feature a mix of undulating waves, rhythmical accents and abundant colour variations that are not only visually stunning, but carefully executed to maximise the properties of Excellence Titan. While development for Excellence Titan was underway, Hiroshi Nakamura oversaw the research of processing technologies—ultimately accomplishing laser micro welding. When it came to designing the frames with the soon-to-be-completed ideal, new material, the processing technology could not hold it back. Here, Hiroshi Nakamura focused his attention on minimising the heated area through laser micro welding. A five-year joint development project with the Joining & Welding Research Institute of Osaka University produced Charmant’s proprietary laser micro welding technology. These intricate designs are formed using proprietary laser micro welding technology, giving rise to literal works of art. Only the styles that perfectly combine supreme wearing comfort with eye-catching beauty are worthy of the name Line Art.
Art and Craft Together for the 10th Year
Line Art celebrated its 10th anniversary intertwined with art and craft in 2019. To honor its 10th anniversary, Line Art has created a collaboration with high-end jewelry brand Hiroumi to further its philosophy of ‘beauty in comfort’. Takaharu Hiroumi, third generation owner of Atelier Hiroumi, founded in 1930, was the first Japanese master jeweler to win a gold medal at the World Skills competition in Montreal in 1999. The proposal to combine jewels with frames was a new challenge for Hiroumi. Hiroumi usually worked with platinum and gold as raw materials, but titanium, with its different hardness, toughness and brilliance, appealed to the craftsman. Artisans of the early 19th century probably felt the same way about using platinum. Takaharu Hiroumi believed that titanium, which was hard but could be formed into small claws, was highly capable of holding diamonds and other gemstones firmly in place. To prepare the stunning jewel-set anniversary models, the Line Art team at Sabae exchanged ideas and iterated on test models almost daily in Hiroumi’s workshop in Osaka.
The technical staff at Charmant were meticulous and painstaking. Despite coming from different industries, they were able to work together thanks to their common approach to craftsmanship. Senior Charmant engineers spent a week hand polishing titanium parts chiseled from a block using a five-core machine. Then, Takaharu Hiroumi carefully set each gemstone in place to maximize their shine. The floral showpieces were completed thanks to the fine work of skilled craftsmen. In addition to the collaborations with Hiroumi, three celebratory models were produced to commemorate the 10th anniversary. These have all become special pieces that look to the future and add sparkle to their wearers.
As Line Art is inspired by music and all the brand’s collection names are musical in nature, the brand decided to include a musical suite for their 10th anniversary. Thus, the famous Japanese musician Masashi Hamauzu composed a new piece called ‘Line Art Suite’. The composition was highly acclaimed as it features the metallic collision of titanium and the sounds of laser micro-welding machines. ‘Line Art Suite’ is classically divided into four sections. The sounds and impressions of creation, rolling machines and craftsmen at work are rhythmically woven into the melody, bringing the music to life and inspiring listeners to truly experience this emotional telling of the brand’s story.
Miraculous Comfort Born of Passion
The creation of Line Art was a major undertaking, from the formation of the new material to the development of laser micro welding to the sourcing of processing machinery capable of mass producing and delivering products to the market. Bringing Line Art onto the market took 15 long years of effort from the conception of the material. More than 8 of those years were spent in earnest development of the collection. This journey was supported and guided by the creator of Line Art, who saw it through its entire evolution from planning through to development, manufacture and sale. These great efforts were also achieved thanks to the passion of the line workers who all shared the same desire to deliver, above all else, the best wearing comfort available.
Even today, 15 years after the launch of Line Art, employees continue to drive forward initiatives aimed at achieving even greater wearing comfort. For example, one team is dedicated to activities that include the implementation of special audits to ensure greater emphasis on quality, while a second team is solely focused on producing nose pads that offer greater comfort. Another team strives to find the best color possibilities by researching color and trend forecasts and working on new concepts. Numerous additional projects find new life every day. Beyond these efforts, the Charmant Group has also invested in a worldwide research project compiling data on head size and shape. The focus here is on improving individual fit and balance, catering to the diversity of users all over the world. Wherever the wearer is in the world, great efforts are made to realize the best wearing comfort for the Line Art Charmant collections. Line Art’s strong and determined team continues to produce the miraculous comfort that brings superior satisfaction, and Line Art remains committed to always evolving forward, aiming to increase the happiness of its users.
August 2024
