Back in 1954, Giorgio Nannini established the foundations for Nannini. In the beginning the company specialised in the production of technical eyeglasses for car and motorcycle pilots, to then expand the business to skiing and sailing.
In time, and in linewith the technological developments, folding glasses became Nannini’s distinctive mark, to which frames made with cellulose acetate were added in 2015.In line with the company mission based on extreme flexibility, the company has converted its productionlines to manufacture protective eyewear. We have spoken about this with Davide Degl'Incerti Tocci, currently at the helm of Nannini together with Alberto Gallinari.
The Covid emergency accelerated the change processes in companies: how did you react?
Our first reaction, after the initial worry and discouragement, was to gather together around a table with our entire team to understand how to deal with such a difficult situation, characterised by unpredictable developments. After this meeting and following on from a request from the Reggio Emilia Fire Brigade, we decided to make our skills available to the community and to try to develop protective eyewear to cope with this emergency.
This led to an effective business conversion, with the introduction of new machinery, which enabled us to achieve more flexibility and launch six new models of injection moulded eyeglasses dedicated to the Covid emergency, a type of product that our company had never manufactured before.
Which market will be the most difficultto reconquer?
All markets around the globe ceased their activities, something that had never happened before. Today we see that China has already returned to an almost normal pace, while Europe is beginning to show signs of taking off again, and Italy before everyone else.The worst news comes from South America which today is in the worst conditions; meanwhile, North America, despite also having to cope with strong social tensions, is slowly restarting.
What are the challenges for the eyewear industry?
Surely anyone who is able to get out of this serious crisis will have to be good at reorganising their own company, and launching a digitisation process will be a key strategic advantage for the future. Furthermore, this situation has brought to light, for non-production companies, the vulnerability of depending on Asian supply markets: my hope is that this will pave the way for increasingly greater reliance on Italian production companies.
It will also be vital to avoid any further decline in consumption and a new spread of the epidemic.
Did you carry out any charitable activities during the Covid-19 emergency to support health-care professionals?
Together with my partners, we have personally made donations and have raised awareness among our collaborators and staff to do the same. On the business side, after the conversion, we have decided to impose a price freeze with a minimum margin for all orders intended for public administration.
To date, we have been unable to donate our product to the hospital and the fire brigade, but this is planned for the end of June.