Xavier Garcia, the framer of gazes from Poblenou

Xavier Garcia was studying industrial design when he entered the world of eyewear. What was then a practical decision has ended up shaping a brand recognized internationally for its striking and unique designs. "A professor told me to take advantage of being young to go abroad, make my own way, and learn. And that's where my father came in, who was involved in the optics world. He helped me find eyewear manufacturers abroad so I could go and learn about the design part," Garcia recounts decades after those beginnings, recalling that his father's contacts were still via fax: "An Italian manufacturer from Ravenna agreed to let me go and learn, and that's where I started my journey in optics."

This is how Garcia's industrial designer's perspective merged with a world that goes beyond the design of an object, as glasses define one's gaze and construct the expression and even the identity of the wearer — in addition to their indispensable use for vision. Those first years served Garcia to learn the trade from within. Afterwards, he returned to Barcelona and worked as a freelance designer for Spanish and French manufacturers: he drew sketches and collections, developed plans, and proposed ideas.

However, he felt that an essential part of the process was missing: "I was selling paper, sketches, and design, but I wasn't experiencing how that ended up becoming an object," he recalls. That concern grew until, in 2004, he took the leap and partnered with a small family workshop in Barcelona specializing in acetate frames. Thus, he closed the circle, to be able to accompany a piece from the first stroke to the finished product.

"From designing a sketch to holding it in your hand, there's an abysmal difference. I was missing that step, that of experiencing the conceived creation turned into reality," Garcia emphasizes. They started the company — under the name Solo Gafas — selling mainly locally, with a model that worked until the 2008 crisis arrived, leaving behind closures and debts.

"It was starting over. And I was clear that the only way for the firm to work was to get a foothold in the international market." Thus, his Barcelona-stamped product began to explore markets such as the German and French. "After a couple of years, we were attending the main international fairs." Now, Xavier Garcia's glasses frame gazes from Australia to Canada, passing through France, Italy, or Germany: "The brand has carved a niche for itself in the world of international optics."

He has done so based on unique models that are born from a creative process that moves away from waiting for inspiration to strike in front of a blank sheet of paper. On the contrary: Garcia creates and designs by "stepping into the factory and understanding the manufacturing processes and the limits of materials and machines." Thus, in this dialogue between ideas and materials, he explores how far each element can be taken: "I like to play within the possibilities that the production process gives you." Each material, with its peculiarities: "I understand metal glasses as small structures, and acetate, the paste, is totally different. Each material gives you possibilities, and you play with them."

With this dynamic creative process, always backed by the Barcelona stamp although now with international suppliers, he has managed to combine materials, textures, colors and materials, sometimes pushing them to the limit: "I started playing with stainless steel sheets and welding one sheet to another, and structures similar to sculptures began to appear," the designer exemplifies.

"I create with the material, and not based on trends"; the material sets the pace: "If a material gives you transparencies and textures, you have to delve into them." Now, that torrent of creativity will go from adopting the form of frames to taking other paths, as Garcia is preparing the sale of the firm, after it started more than 20 years ago. Various buyers have shown interest in the brand, which has been making a name for itself in the international market for decades, from Poblenou. Garcia is committed to leaving business management aside to be able to focus on his more creative facet, to close a design career with two aspirations: traveling in a motorhome and painting landscapes, changing the frame for the canvas, from the same gaze.