Here's a riddle for you.

Name an item that is both a medical device and a fashion accessory.

An item that may cost $50 to make, but often sells for over $1,000.

An item that was invented eight centuries ago has improved billions of lives, and yet many people who need it don't have it, especially children.

Have you figured it out?

The item I'm talking about here is the pair of eyeglasses sitting right now on my face and maybe yours too.

This episode and the episode next week also are about the economics of the eyeglass industry. Does that sound boring? It isn't boring. What we learned

while making these episodes is that the eyewear industry is fascinating and strange.

What you see is often not what you get. It is a unique

and resilient industry in the words of one research firm with global annual

revenues of around $150 billion, and it's growing fast, not just because

more people need glasses these days, but because we are paying more.

In the U.S. the biggest market in the world, a pair of simple prescription glasses costs on average around $350.

It is an industry with many players, but one is much bigger than the rest. They're called

Eselor Luxotica. They are the result of a 2018 merger between the French

lens manufacturer Eselor and the Italian frame maker Luxotica.

You've probably never heard of Esselor Luxotica, but you certainly know the brands they partner

with, Armani, Chanel, Coach, Michael Cors, on and on.

But Esylore Luxotica goes way, way beyond luxury.

They own LensCrafters and Pearl Vision, Vision Express and Oliver Peoples, they own

Sunglass Hut, as well as Ray-Ban and Oakley.

They even own Eye Med, the second biggest Vision Ins insurer in the US.

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