7 prototypes to be unveiled at SILMO Paris this month

Aimed at stimulating creativity and providing a platform for the future generation of designers, SILMO Paris launched the Optical Design Contest to allow all students enrolled in a design course at a level equivalent or above third year post-baccalauréat to submit a project that integrates an ethical design approach for an optical object, be it lenses, frames, connected objects, low vision or equipment for opticians or manufacturers, etc. 

For this first edition, the competition is chaired by Emmanuel Gallina, a designer known for his creative ethic, who graduated from E.N.A.D (Limoges) and I.A.V (Orléans) before earning a Master’s degree in design & management from Politecnico di Milano. Based between Bordeaux and Milan, he now designs furniture and objects for major brands and furnishes locations and interiors all over the world.

The 7 projects that have been shortlisted for the award will present their prototype at SILMO Paris from 23 to 26 september, where the winner for 2022 will be announced. The prototypes to be unveiled are:

• SI / Look to the future by Alessandro Battaini (NABA - New Academy of Fine Arts, Milan): a pre-mounted glasses concept, interchangeable and versatile.

• KNOT / Inclusive Eyewear by Diego Sparta (Politecnico di Milano - Bovisa Durando Campus - Design School): a frame designed for disabled people.

• OORA by Silvana Migliozzi (Politecnico di Milano): smart glasses intended for readers, whose principal application is the ability to annotate text and save quotes… at a glance.

• SONDER by Sessa Martina (NABA - New Academy of Fine Arts, Milan): glasses fitted with sensors to avoid headaches, limit back problems and correct bad posture.

• PERCY by Jocelyne Boisson (Design School of Landes, Mont-de-Marsan): a moulded aquatic mask that questions the role of vision, to be seen without necessarily seeing.

• GOOGLESS by Vincenzo Panico (NABA - New Academy of Fine Arts, Milan): a modern reinvention of the nose clip and the monocle that plays on geometric shapes.

• UNFOLDABLE by Adi Abramov (Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art, Ramat Gan, Israel): glasses made from recycled material in a brutalist aesthetic, with profiled X-hinge stems.

Click here for more information and tickets to SILMO Paris.