Maison — our story
Optiek Jules — Witte de Withstraat, early sixties
1958
Jules came home from the fair in Milan with a suitcase of frames and a conviction: people in Rotterdam deserved eyewear chosen by someone who knew their name. He fitted glasses at a wooden counter, ground lenses in the back, and kept every customer’s measurements in a leather ledger we still own.
His rule was simple — if a frame didn’t suit a face, he said so, even when it cost him the sale. Sixty-eight years later we still lose sales the same way. The counter is still there. So is the ledger.
1994
My father turned the stockroom into Rotterdam’s smallest, calmest exam room. He believed an eye test should feel like a conversation, not a conveyor belt — forty-five minutes, unhurried questions, honest answers.
The same year he signed a lease on Utrechtsestraat in Amsterdam — the first time the family name hung over a door Jules had never walked through. The leather ledger became a database; the patience stayed analogue.
Acetate blanks, waiting to become frames
2006 — 2011
Den Haag and Utrecht opened in the same year — a decision my mother still describes as “ambitious”. Eindhoven followed, on the design end of town, because a city that draws things deserves a good pair of glasses.
Every new door got the same rule: the same counter, the same forty-five minutes, a bench in the back. Different streets, same manner.
Kloosterstraat, Antwerpen — Oma’s city
2015 — 2022
My grandmother was from Antwerp, and the family always spoke of “going back” as if it were a matter of time. In 2015 it was: a shop on Kloosterstraat, among the antique dealers, with her name on the opening invitation.
Gent came in 2019, because Gent kept asking. Brussel followed on Dansaert in 2022 — open six days, bilingual on all of them. Eight counters, two countries, one ledger.
2024 — today
I grew up between the frame displays, left to study, came back with opinions. Out went the fluorescent lights and the wall of sameness. In came warm oak, a proper espresso machine in every shop, brands like Jacques Marie Mage next to the Ray-Bans grandfather would recognise — and one name over all eight doors, with this website, so your prescription, subscriptions and orders live in one place whichever counter you walk up to.
Eight sets of wallpaper, same promise: honest advice, a perfect fit, and coffee while you decide.
Third-generation owner — at the Rotterdam counter
Jules — founder, 1958