Designed in Toulouse, broken-in everywhere else.
Solvane is a small studio that draws sport sunglasses for the way people actually move — not the way the catalogue photographs. Three drafts in, six months of field rotation, then the frame ships.
How we started.
Solvane started in 2021 with a complaint: every pair of sport sunglasses we bought failed in the same three ways. The temples slipped on a long climb. The lens fogged at the col. The rubber on the bridge dried up and shed in a year. We started cutting frames in a garage workshop in the Cévennes, gave them to people who run and ride and ski, and rewrote the parts that broke.
Five years later, the workshop is in Toulouse, the cutters are still hand-tooled and the field-test rotation is still the rule. A frame doesn't leave the room until three rounds of testers wear it for six months.
How we build.
Materials, named.
We list the alloy, the polymer, the country of milling. Beta-titanium from Aichi, Mazzucchelli acetate from Italy, grilamid TR-90 for the sport frames, hydro-foam composite for water. No mystery composites.
Lens-first design.
We draw the lens before the frame. The lens determines the wrap, the wrap determines the brow, the brow determines the bridge. By the time we cut metal or melt acetate, the function is locked.
Field rotation.
Six months in the field with three rounds of testers — runners, cyclists, sailors, ski tourers. The temples have been redrawn three times because of one runner who could feel a 0.5 mm asymmetry.
Repair, not replace.
Every frame ships with replaceable nose pads, temple grips and (where relevant) lenses. The Snowmaster Pro lens swap takes five seconds in a glove. The Heritage Ti aviator can be re-soldered — send it back, we'll redo it.
Who we are.
A small team in Toulouse: one designer (frames), one optical engineer (lenses), one workshop lead (assembly), one packing and shipping lead, three rotating testers. We talk to all our customers directly — if you write to hello@solvane.com, the reply will be from one of these five people.
[Team members — pending]