Made in Berlin:

We wanted to convince ourselves of the best-known 'Made in Berlin' product and visited the international successful eyewear brand 'Mykita' in their own manufacture, the Mykita House in Berlin Kreuzberg.

The Mykita House is an old backyard complex in the popular district Kreuzberg. More than 300 people are working here from monday to friday to produce around 800-1200 eyeglasses each day which are sent out to Mykita customers and the 60 Mykita shops all over the world. Surprisingly the life of a Mykita begins pretty easy. Several stainless steel plates are delivered daily in the ground floor of the Mykita House. In those plates the outline of the to be produced eyeglasses are stencilled etched. Several pairs of glasses are made from each plate. Each glasses-front is cut out carefully and afterwards examined with a magnifying glass and gloves to search for scratches and production errors. What happens next to the glasses is depending on the conditions, whether the model can be a pure metal glasses or gets a colored coating or perhaps even will enter into a hybrid combination with acetate or the house patented material Mylon.

The flawless blanks are further processed on the ground floor. Among product designers, in these part of formation you can find opticians, goldsmiths and dental technicians as workers for Mykita. The most important thing is to pass every formation step with perfect accuracy, since the metal front of the eyeglasses gets first a little rounding to adapt to the face shape. Furthermore, in some eyewear models are different wrinkle set in the nose pads accordingly to the different eyewear designs. The straps are bent and rounded in the proper form for the glasses and faces. This is real precision work. Each kink in the metal has to fit, because mistakes can not be corrected subsequently and can make an entire glasses unwearable. 

After buckling and rounding the glasses, the individual parts are briefly sent back on a journey to get their coat. This does is the only process which is not happening in Mykita house, but at partner companies in Germany. If the coated glasses are back in Berlin, they reach the other floors of the house. The lenses are all sanded and used by hand, also the installation of the glasses strap is done by hand.

The label "Made in Berlin " as well as the specific model name are etched or printed in-house in their very own printing press on the straps. At the end each part is assembled with the other to the popular spectacles.

Finally it's time for the finishing touch of a Mykita glasses: the patented hinge. It combines strap and glasses front and dispense entirely with screws or soldering. The strap tips are bent and folded like origamis and so brought to the spectacle front. While opening and closing of the spectacle one feels a small resistance, a snap movement which occurs while latching. That is what Mykita stands for.

In a further formation step, the nose pads are used and adjusted by hand. All adhesive residue and supernatants are carefully removed by hand and with Q-tips. Finally the finished glasses are polished and cleaned. Anyone who appreciates real handmade quality can experience it at Mykita.

While the metal glasses as opticals or sunglasses are finished at this point and ready to be packaged and shipped, there is another floor at the Mykita House, which only cares about the acetate and Mylon glasses. Mylon, which is a self-developed ultra light material made of polyamide, was invented by Mykita product designers. This rather futuristic eyewear models are for all potential customers who are not into the metal glasses but still do not want to give up the special design. It has just an easy, flexible, suitable everyday use as a typical metal Mykita glasses and also equipped with the patented Mykita hinge. The Mylon glasses are extensively printed in a patented process, a laser-sintering process. Polyamide powder is melted to form a three-dimensional body. Because of the light weight of Mylon glasses they are also popular for athletes. The future requires that they can offer through personal dimension data, a personalized Mylon.

In 2004 the eyewear label Mykita was founded in Berlin by four childhood friends from Oldenburg, two designers and two entrepreneur. Their mission was to put an end to the classic metal glasses and old-fashioned spectacle frames. It all began with a eyewear-contest in which the friends rather participated because they were bored  by university life - Mykita was born. Now they sell their eyeglasses in shops around the world and develop between 60 and 100 new models each year in their in-house design and development department Mykita is also popular for their long-standing collaborations with renowned designers such as Damir Doma and Bernhard Wilhelm, which is why they are not only interesting in the opticians sector, but also having a special significance in fashion industry. Worldwide Mykita has around 800 employees in their own shops, which are based in cities like Berlin, New York, Paris, Monterrey, Vienna, Zurich and Tokyo.

Who is already wearing Mykita knows that the phrase 'Made in Berlin' is already as reliable as a 'Made in Germany'. The company plans to continue all manufacturing parts in Berlin and rather larger than relocate their production from Berlin. We think that is a rosy view of the future, in which more German entrepreneurs should learn a lesson from.