Face à Face treats eyewear as art.

Face à Face is a lesson in art and architecture as the identity. Founded in 1995 in Paris by Pascal Jaulent, Nadine Roth and Alyson Magee, it rejected eyewear-as-medical-device and made frames that behave like modern art.

Its identity is the art frame. Face à Face makes bold, sculptural, colourful optical frames and sunglasses — avant-garde shapes and vibrant colour drawn from modern art and architecture. Eyewear as an art object. A frame that could hang on a wall.

(Honest notes: Face à Face was founded in 1995 in Paris by three designers — Pascal Jaulent, Nadine Roth and Alyson Magee (we add Magee, often omitted, and describe them as designers rather than “architects,” which isn’t verified). Its signature is bold, sculptural, avant-garde frames in vibrant colour, inspired by modern art and architecture (we keep specific movement references general, as “Mondrian/Bauhaus” attributions aren’t confirmed). On production, it is designed in Paris but produced in France, Italy or Japan — only selected lines carry Origine France Garantie — so we don’t claim a blanket “made in France.” On ownership, the key fact: it is not independent — since 2015 it has been a founding brand of Design Eyewear Group (headquartered in Aarhus, Denmark; portfolio includes Woow, ProDesign and others), with Jaulent as group creative director. There’s no official brand hex — these tones are an unofficial interpretation. This is design commentary and does not promote any product.)

Face à Face lives in an art-primary palette. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

Face à Face’s identity is artistic, bold and architectural — an art red, an ink, a cobalt, a yellow, and a chalk. The palette leans art primary — the register of modern-art colour and sculptural shape. It signals art and architecture rather than novelty. The honest caveat: with no published brand hex, these tones are an original, unofficial interpretation, not first-party values.

The lesson is an art-primary palette signals an art-led eyewear brand. Face à Face’s world is a bold, sculptural object. For designers, it is a reminder that treating eyewear as art — vivid primaries, architectural forms — can be a whole identity, and that a clear artistic philosophy sets a brand apart from clinical, medical-feeling frames. Because an art red can fail as small text, keep type dark and let the colour live in the accents, palette and band. The takeaways: treat it as art; use primary colour; sculpt the form; and treat any single hex as unofficial.

The register is an art serif — bold, expressive, modern.

Face à Face’s identity carries a bold, expressive, modern spirit — an artistic, sculptural object. A characterful contemporary serif captures the mood: it is confident and artful, the register of an avant-garde house. Set in an art-primary palette, the art serif feels bold and expressive — exactly the personality Face à Face carries. It is modern rather than classical, mirroring a sculptural frame. (Face à Face’s real frames and wordmark are works we describe but do not reproduce, and the exact typeface is not ours to use.) Because it is not ours to use, the honest description is “an art serif spirit,” shown here in a stand-in. The type behaves like the brand: bold, expressive and modern.

Face à Face stands for the art frame.

Face à Face is a lesson in treating eyewear as art. An art-primary palette, an art serif and a sculptural frame make modern art the whole brand — artistic, bold, architectural. The philosophy is the differentiator. The differentiator is a founding idea — glasses as art, not medical devices — expressed in vivid colour and form.

Put to work, the identity is a manifesto made wearable. A designer building in this spirit would start from a clear artistic stance and let it drive shape and colour, so every frame reads as a small piece of modern art rather than a corrective device. The lesson Face à Face teaches is that an art philosophy is a durable engine for design: three designers rejecting the clinical norm in 1995 gave the brand a reason to be bold that still generates sculptural, colourful collections decades later, and belonging to a larger group has let that vision scale internationally. Being honest about group ownership and mixed manufacturing keeps the art story credible.

For designers and brand-builders, Face à Face offers a clear takeaway: start from an art philosophy. The lessons: treat it as art; use primary colour; sculpt the form; and be honest about the story. It is also a reminder to stay accurate: it was founded in 1995 in Paris by Jaulent, Roth and Magee, its frames are art-led and avant-garde, and it is part of Design Eyewear Group — the palette here is an unofficial interpretation. Face à Face made the art frame the brand — proof that a philosophy can be the difference.

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