Inside Blackfin: “We want to be directly connected to titanium”

Wispy clouds drifted low over the Belluno Dolomite mountains as a group of optical press and eye care professionals from the UK arrived at Blackfin’s headquarters on 26 June.

The Italian eyewear manufacturer’s facility, named the Black Shelter, is striking in the Alpine town, with black aluminium cladding and a sloping roof echoing the rocky peaks that rise in all directions around the valley.

Opening the doors of the Black Shelter, the Blackfin Experience has been created to provide an insight into where, and how, the brand’s titanium frames are crafted.

An eyewear heritage

The history of the eyewear company dates back more than 50 years, however, as Nicola Del Din, CEO of Blackfin, explained: “There is a prologue.”

The connection between this area of Italy and the eyewear industry runs deep. Del Din suggested more than 80% of Italian eyewear is produced in Belluno province, or “the eyewear valley.”

“In the eyewear industry in Italy, everything happens here,” he said.

The province has seen small frame businesses grow into giants of eyewear manufacturing – first Safilo, then Luxottica.

Del Din’s mother, Maria Luisa Pramaor, was the 18^th employee of Luxottica, and stayed with the manufacturer for 10 years.

After managing an outsourced finishing workshop in 1971, she decided to strike out by establishing an independent business.

“It wasn’t normal in the 70s for a woman to open a factory,” Del Din said. “She did it by herself, and all of the first employees were women.”

Pramaor’s husband, Primo Del Din, later joined the business, and seeking to differentiate themselves from the many small businesses connected to the eyewear industry in the area, the manufacturer moved from metal frames to titanium.

The process of learning to make frames from titanium was steep, as Nicola Del Din reflected: “I remember my mother with the soldering machines around her for three to four years, from 1990 to 1994, testing, testing, testing, to make frames.”

The family business was rocked by a series of challenges in the late 90s and early 2000s, both in competition from manufacturing in Asia, and the loss of Nicola’s father.

Del Din credits the chief financial officer and partner who joined at this time, Giancarlo Recchia, for believing in the business in the midst of financial difficulties.

Visiting optical trade shows, Silmo and Mido, inspired Nicola Del Din to consider a different approach to eyewear manufacturing. He realised: “Our only chance, but it is a very good chance, is to use our knowledge of titanium to make our own brand.”

Work began on what was to become the Blackfin brand, with the logo created first.

As fish are representative of life across many cultures, a design of a minimalist fish was chosen to embody the brand.

“The company was dying, and we had with this project, a second possibility,” Del Din said.

In 2008, the business launched its first models under the Blackfin name. Since then, Blackfin eyewear has been to space with astronaut and engineer, Paolo Nespoli, and has partnered with the Andrea Bocelli Foundation, and the hypercar manufacturer, Pagani.

Three core pillars

The creation of Blackfin’s guiding principles was a key step in the formation of the brand and has remained core to the manufacturer’s way of working since.

Del Din devised the term ‘neomadeinItaly’ to encapsulate this ethos of “a new way of making eyewear in Italy.”

The concept is based around three pillars, the first being that Blackfin’s eyewear is truly made in Italy.

Only the first stage of the production process is not carried out within the walls of the Black Shelter: the frame parts are cut from the sheets of Japanese titanium by a small family business, located within half an hour of the factory.

This decision is reflected in Blackfin’s second pillar, which is ‘respect for people,’ including those within the business and external suppliers.

Finally, sustainability is a tenet of the brand’s focus. The opening of Black Shelter, with its certification as a sustainable building, was important to this. 

The building, which was completed in 2021 on the same spot as the former factory and was inaugurated in 2022, marked the first in the Veneto region to obtain the Klima Haus Work & Life certification.

The Klima Haus Agency provides certification for energy-efficient and sustainable construction processes, also encompassing holistic approaches to enhancing the working environment for employees.

The facility has solar panels on the roof, draws its heating from biomass sources, and recycles leftover titanium to create alloys. All electricity used by the company is purchased from a business producing energy from water in the Dolomites.

Blackfin is also working on a medium/long-term sustainability plan.

Simplicity, quality, efficiency

The Black Shelter is home to Blackfin’s corporate offices and production, bringing all operations in-house.

Filippo Pustetto, sales director for Blackfin, told visitors: “Doing everything in-house can be fantastic or pretty hard to manage if you don’t have a solid and clear operations set up.”

This is an asset for Blackfin, he said, as the company can control the entire process to ensure high standards of quality and service for customers and patients.

Blackfin’s strength, the team emphasised, is its experience in using Japanese titanium.

Pustetto summarised: “Our focus exclusively on titanium allows us to be very efficient despite the extreme complexity of the entire production process, especially in the soldiering, polishing and colouring.”

He highlighted the company’s more than 30 years of experience dedicated exclusively to using titanium, along with the craftmanship of employees.

Explaining the process of creating Blackfin eyewear, he shared: “One material, one block of titanium, from which we are able to create a wide variety of shapes and different thicknesses for any kind of look, without compromises when it comes to comfort and functionality.”

Pustetto described the company’s “unique capabilities to treat colours on titanium” as a “mix between science and art.”

Colouring the frames is a particular challenge, and all the colours for the models are created internally.

Frames are hand-coloured using a spray gun and without a reference, relying on the expertise and skill of the individuals involved. Water used in the colouring process is re-used.

It’s all about material

Why Japanese titanium? The secret is in the way the material is treated, Pustetto shared, offering a surface the brand sees as most suitable for eyewear. He highlighted the depth of the company’s experience, not just in eyewear production, but in working with titanium.

This is an added value for end consumers and patients who are spending money on new frames, he suggested, as: “It's about reliability.”

“That is the value of such a long experience with the material. That value is priceless,” he said, adding: “And we’re still learning.”

More developments are yet to come for Blackfin, with further expansion of collections already on the horizon for this year and early next.

The widening collections reflect a desire to expand Blackfin’s use of titanium as a material, providing more options for the end consumer.

“We want to be directly connected to titanium,” Del Din said, explaining: “It is already the case in some countries, but what we hope will happen in other countries is that when practices think about titanium, they think of Blackfin.”