British eyewear brand Cubitts is the epitome of ‘if you know you know’ (IYKYK) culture – where a brand lies so far under the radar that one automatically receives cool points for knowing about it. A favourite amongst celebrities and fashion trendsetters like Spike Lee, Idris Elba and Stanley Tucci, Cubitts has steadily garnered the attention of eyewear aficionados over the past few years. Founder Tom Broughton started the business in 2012, more so as a passion project than a mo
n a money-making venture.
“I worked in a bunch of working-class office jobs for companies like Spotify and the BBC. But my passion and my hobby was always collecting glasses, especially vintage frames,” he told Inside Retail.
In his 20s, Broughton became acquainted with Lawrence Jenkin, one of the UK’s last remaining master frame makers, and he started an apprenticeship with him. Broughton decided to launch an eyewear company to support what was becoming a very expensive hobby.
In the beginning, he bootstrapped the business with earnings from his corporate work. It wasn’t until 2014, when he received a £100,000 investment from a loyal customer, that he was able to step away from the corporate world and build enough momentum with the company to open the first physical store in London.
It took nearly a decade’s worth of trial-and-error as a brand founder and a shop owner to find his groove, but he eventually got there. Then, in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and like many small-business owners, Broughton experienced some major setbacks.
At the time, he derived about 80 per cent of revenue from in-store sales, and had to quickly pivot to e-commerce when lockdowns prevented him from operating.
This included taking on debt and reducing costs wherever possible, as well as taking time to restructure some stores to be ready to welcome back new and loyal customers.
During this time, Cubitts also developed software to take measurements of customers’ heads and built a database of 10,000 individual head measurements.
“This has been incredibly important because it allowed us to design collections of frames based on a statistically significant database of head and face shapes,” Broughton explained. “So we can design frames for segments of people, rather than what most brands do, which is just design for the average person.”
Cubitts relies on ‘attraction rather than promotion’
In addition to the brand’s detail-oriented approach to frame design, Broughton revealed another key ingredient in the recipe for the brand’s success.
“Our approach to retail is different to pretty much everyone else’s in our category,” he shared.
“From the very beginning, when we first opened our first store, we wanted to be the antithesis of what people expect an optician’s shop to be. We wanted to be almost like a nice bar, restaurant or hotel, just a place people wanted to be and to spend time in.
“Our strategy was that if you make a beautiful space with beautiful products created by really talented people, then people will come. It will be about attraction rather than promotion.
“We want to be the light bulb that the moths come to and we do that by making these amazing stores.”
In the case of the brand’s second New York-based store, located in the heart of New York City’s West Village, Cubitts partnered up with design studio Tutto Bene to design a store interior that brings the spectacle of New York’s theatrical quarter to spectacles.
Set in the building once inhabited by seminal playwright Lorraine Hansberry, the store is a love letter to the glamour of the theatre.
The front of the store is designed as a stage for spectacles, with felt-lined walls, recessed wooden shelving and black parquet wooden floorboards reminiscent of a stage.
“The West Village neighbourhood, steeped in the history of performance and expression therefore feels like a natural home for Cubitts,” Broughton noted.
Cubitts’ bright future
Since 2021, Cubitts has experienced a steady growth rate of 20 per cent, year over year, Broughton disclosed. He said the brand is on track to make US$24 million in sales by the end of the year.
In addition to its thriving DTC operations, the brand operates 20 bricks-and-mortar stores in total, with 18 located in the UK and two in New York City.
As Broughton hinted to Inside Retail, however, the brand is not slowing down its bricks-and-mortar expansion momentum anytime soon.
He disclosed that the team is already searching for the perfect spot to set up the next New York-based shop and is planning for further growth in the US and Asia, especially in the trend-setting city of Tokyo.
Further reading: Owndays’ Group CEO on the Japanese eyewear label’s rebrand after 16 years