Sharp-eyed into a greener future

Count­less things can trig­ger a good feel­ing: The look of a loved one, a cool drop of water on the skin or a sen­tence that has been hanging unspoken for far too long.

In the end, the only thing that mat­ters is allow­ing this good feel­ing to come through and being open to the waves of change that it may stir up. The film ​“La Pis­cine”, which inspired us to devel­op our new spe­cial col­lec­tion, is all about cel­eb­rat­ing these emo­tions, not with a big hur­ray and great fan­fare, but with conviction.

But a good feel­ing can also arise in a moment of clar­ity – as an assur­ance that we’re doing just the right thing.

Even just a single action or a small step can lead towards a bet­ter and green­er future. Here at neubau, we want to cre­ate this good feel­ing among our cus­tom­ers with each of our products, and for us that means com­bin­ing envir­on­ment­ally-friendly pro­duc­tion meth­ods and trend-set­ting design.

The path towards our green­er future begins in Vienna’s trendy dis­trict of Neubau, where numer­ous inde­pend­ent shops, gal­ler­ies, res­taur­ants and bars char­ac­ter­ize the col­or­ful, cre­at­ive hustle and bustle.

Those who come to Neubau want to help shape the future and leave their own mark – in a sus­tain­able way. Even if the res­id­ents of the dis­trict have dif­fer­ent life stor­ies, their vis­ion of the future is sim­il­ar. This is why, with our motto ​“See & Do Good”, we always focus on sus­tain­able mater­i­als, pro­duc­tion in Aus­tria and innov­at­ive design. And there­fore, always on a good feeling.

Although its real name (the Lat­in Ricinus com­munis) is not so widely known, the castor oil plant quickly became fam­ous for its almost magic­al fea­tures. Nick­named the mir­acle tree, and not without reas­on, the almost myth­ic­al-look­ing plant was en- dowed with impress­ive super powers by Moth­er Nature.

The extremely res­ist­ant plant grows up to five metres in just three to four months, pro­du­cing seeds whose ver­sat­il­ity must even amaze a suc­cess­ful dec­ath­lete. This is why the oil of the castor oil plant, which is extrac­ted from its seeds, can be labeled as a first-class uni­ver­sal tal­ent. nat­ur­alPX, the mater­i­al from which all our poly­mer frames are made, con­sists of 65% castor oil and is there­fore a par­tic­u­larly envir­on­ment­ally-friendly poly­mer. Due to its par­tic­u­larly high flex­ib­il­ity, impress­ive res­ist­ance, great col­or intens­ity and remark­ably low weight, nat­ur­alPX quickly proved to be an excel­lent material.

How­ever, with our newly developed mater­i­al natural3D we man­aged to make our pro­duc­tion even more sustainable.

The seeds of the castor oil plant con­tin­ue to form the basis of the mater­i­al, but we have suc­ceeded in increas­ing the pro­por­tion of renew-able raw mater­i­als to 100%. With the devel­op­ment of natural3D, a com­pletely nat­ur­al mater­i­al can now also be used in 3D print­ers for the first time. This innov­at­ive new way of print­ing is a dra­mat­ic­ally resource- sav­ing pro­cess in which excess mater­i­al can eas­ily be reused.

When it comes to sus­tain­ab­il­ity, of course, we also think out­side the frame.

Our eye­wear pack­aging, clean­ing cloths, accessor­ies and prints are made from recycled or envir­on­ment­ally-friendly mater­i­als. In addi­tion, 100% green elec­tri­city flows through the lines of our headquar­ters and our pro­duc­tion facil­ity, and strict air and water fil­tra­tion enables us to work almost com­pletely emission-free.

It’s no won­der, then, that dir­ect­or Jacques Deray used the impress­ive scenery of the Côte d’Azur as the back­drop for ​“La Pis­cine” – a movie that would become a paradigm of French cinema. 

Star­ring Romy Schneider, Alain Delon and Maurice Ron­et, the film’s char­ac­ters find them­selves on an unre­lent­ing quest for free­dom — a lib­er­a­tion guided by free-flow­ing emo­tions and instinct­ive sen­su­al­ity. In the stifling sum­mer heat, fol­low­ing hearts rather than their heads can be dan­ger­ous, but when emo­tions are about to boil over, the azure swim­ming pool acts as the trio’s salvation.

Inspired by the sen­su­al cool of Deray’s cult clas­sic, our brand-new spe­cial col­lec­tion Côte du Soleil is about the beauty that comes when cour­age and free­dom collide.

Our brand-new frames are named Alain, Romy and Maurice, allud­ing to the three act­ors that helped ​“La Pis­cine” to acquire its legendary status, and there are unmis­tak­able par­al­lels in the frames’ forms too. Just as the pool’s edge embraces the glit­ter­ing water with­in, the frames of our three new mod­els stretch like a band around the lenses.