EYEFIYHOW WE WORK
Your order, in four stages
Anyone can forward your files to a factory. The work is everything that happens between your spec and a carton that matches it. Here is the whole process — including where it goes wrong at each stage, and what we do about it because we came out of the factory ourselves.
Catalog-based or client-driven. We run both.
| Track A — From our catalog | Track B — Your design | |
|---|---|---|
| YOU BRING | Your brand: logo, colorways, packaging | A tech pack, sketches, or a brief plus references |
| WE DO | Adapt an existing design we developed — logo by laser engraving or pad printing, your acetate colors, your lens spec | Engineering review, structural redraws where needed, tooling, sampling, production |
| TOOLING | None needed — the molds are ours, which is what makes 300 possible | $3K–15K when a new mold is needed; a mold you pay for is yours |
| FIRST SAMPLE | 20–40 DAYS | 20–40 DAYS, after review |
| GOOD FOR | Wholesale and distribution buyers; brands testing a category | Brands with a design point of view — including details other suppliers refuse |
The catalog also serves Track B clients as an inspiration library — teams arriving with a complete tech pack still browse it to set direction. More on the catalog →
Four stages, with the failure modes attached
Most supplier pages list the steps and skip the failures. The failures are the actual content of this work.
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Designs — and a spec that can’t be misread
One factory sees only its own line. We work across the Wenzhou and Shenzhen clusters — many factories, each building for many brands — and that field of view turns into house collections we design and release on a steady rhythm, and into direction we can give your project because we know what the industry is building. Bring your own design instead, and the first thing we do is restate your spec back to you in writing: materials, hinge type, finish grade, logo process.
WHERE IT GOES WRONG Elsewhere: the supplier quotes your spec but builds to theirs. A founder hears "OEM" as "they build what I designed." Some factories hear "OEM" as "we quote their spec, then build what our line already makes." That gap is where bad orders start.
WHAT WE DO You correct the spec once, on paper, before any money moves — instead of three times in production. And if you came for inspiration first, the catalog is a design library, not one factory’s lookbook.
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Engineering that upgrades the design
Henry reads your structure the way a 25-year engineer reads it: where the force goes, what the tooling can hold, what fails in month two. Then the first sample lands in 20–40 days, 30 being typical — a physical object checked against the drawing line by line, not a render.
WHERE IT GOES WRONG Elsewhere: a factory reads a difficult structure and quotes you pain — slow, expensive, or "can’t be done." Or it says yes to everything and ships the failures. And samples come off a "similar" mold with nobody mentioning it — we have rejected samples whose front view didn’t match the drawing, from factories that called the substitution equal.
WHAT WE DO The no arrives with a plan B: a lower-cost path, a structure the factory said it couldn’t build, a hinge redrawn before you pay for tooling. We have rejected a single-screw hinge clamping too little acetate and sent back two structures that hold — the dated write-ups live in the factory notes. The pattern never changes: reject, redraw, then sample.
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You watch the order; the factory can’t fool us
Production runs 70–90 days, sometimes longer. Which floor builds your frames matters more than whose name is on the gate — the same factory runs different lines at different grades, and we know which manager runs which floor, by name. The same logic runs across cities: Wenzhou builds the industry’s mid-range, Shenzhen its high end. Your order is placed where its grade belongs, not where a line happens to have capacity.
WHERE IT GOES WRONG Elsewhere: your order is quietly routed to the volume line because that is the line with capacity — we watched a top-grade order land on a volume floor: of roughly 1,600 frames, three to four hundred came out clean. And when a problem surfaces, a factory tells the brand "it can’t be fixed," because the fix is painful.
WHAT WE DO Every stage change reports to you — you never ask "where is my order." When something breaks mid-run, we know whether it can be reworked, how, and how long, because we ran a factory ourselves. The factory can’t tell us "impossible." We push it to do the work it would rather skip — standing on your side of the interest conflict, not theirs.
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QC that’s ours, and paperwork that’s handled
Incoming materials, in-process checks during the run, final inspection before packing — sampling per ISO 2859-1, defect classes agreed before production starts. Then FOB, EXW or DDP, with compliance for your market (CE EN ISO 12870 / ISO 12312-1, FDA 21 CFR 801.410, ANSI Z80.3, AS/NZS 1067, REACH, Prop 65) handled as part of the job.
WHERE IT GOES WRONG Elsewhere: the goods are inspected by the people who made them — or by a hired inspector who arrives at the very end, samples a few cartons when every frame is already built, and has no leverage over anything he finds. Problems get discussed quietly, and the defects travel to your warehouse at ocean speed.
WHAT WE DO Our QC is not an end-of-line visit — it works the whole order through three gates: incoming materials, in-process checks, final count. Defect photos go to the shared group with the factory the day we find them, even when the factory boss asks us not to. A batch that fails our inspection does not ship; we have held batches and eaten the delay.
GOLDEN CASES Quantified engineering results — the standing reference →
LEAD TIME Where the 70–90 days go — every step, every material →
对版检查：一只手举着样品镜架贴近打印图纸，比对正视图轮廓；图纸上有红笔标注；侧光，背景就是工作台面。对应 Stage 1'样品对不上图纸就退'的真实动作。
手机实拍即可 · 不修图 · 全清单见 site/ASSETS.md
分拣台俯拍 45°：成排待检镜架平铺，旁边挑出的不良品单独一摞，配点数单或标签纸。对应 Stage 3 QC 现场。
手机实拍即可 · 不修图 · 全清单见 site/ASSETS.md
One model can run several colorways — each colorway is a SKU inside the model's 300.
Why not just work with a factory directly?
You can — plenty of brands do. What you get from a factory is its own line: its own designs, its own processes, its own version of "can't be done." What you can't get is someone who reads its quote critically, reroutes the order when a line underperforms, or tells you a rework is possible when the factory says it isn't. And there's a quieter problem: the factory you audit is not always the factory that builds your order — subcontracting without notice is standard practice in this industry. We put the whole mechanism on the table in "Where your order actually goes". We came out of the factory floor, so we know the difference — and unlike the factory, we sit on your side of the interest conflict.
Is 300 really the MOQ?
Yes — 300 per model, not per colorway. One model can carry several colorways, and each colorway is a SKU inside the model's 300. A supplier who quotes you 300 and then pressures you to 1,000 has just changed the deal. We don't.
Who owns the tooling?
Catalog molds are ours — that is what makes 300 possible on those designs. A mold you pay for on a custom design is yours: if you leave, it leaves with you. Henry has spent 25 years watching "tooling held hostage" used as a leash. We don't run that play.
Will my design stay mine?
Yes. We sign NDAs when asked, and client designs do not appear in our catalog or anyone else's order. Beyond paper: on sensitive builds we can split the work across factories, so no single line ever holds your complete design. The structural protection is also simple — the catalog is our own design work, developed year-round; we are not short of designs to sell.
Do I need to visit the factory?
No. The whole service is built so you never have to: photos and video from your actual run, stage updates before you ask, problems reported the day we find them. Visiting changes nothing about how much you know. That said, the door is open — if you want to come to Wenzhou, come, and we'll host you properly. It's a pleasure, just not a requirement.
I've never produced eyewear before.
That's workable. What we need from you is the brand decision — what it should look like, what it should cost at retail, when you need it. The vocabulary (acetate vs TR-90, CR-39 vs polarized, what a hinge cycle test is) is our side of the table. You'll pick it up as the project moves; you don't need it to start.
What happens if goods arrive with defects?
Defect classes and AQL sampling are agreed before production, so "defective" is a measurement, not an argument. A batch that fails our own inspection does not ship — we have held batches and taken the delay. If something we should have caught reaches you anyway, saying so and fixing it at our cost is the whole reason this company exists.
Send the spec. Or send the problem.
Either is a fine starting point. We answer questions before we quote.