Leonardo Del Vecchio is CEO of Luxottica, the world’s biggest eyeglasses company. Besides owning huge retail brands including Lenscrafters and Cohen’s Fashion Optical, Luxottica makes frames under the names Ray-Ban, Oakley, and tons of others. It also has a deal to make Glass for Google. Which makes an interview he gave the Financial Times (which is behind a paywall) a little problematic. Said Del Vecchio:
“I have not used Google Glass, it would embarrass me going around with that on my face. It would be OK in the disco, but I no longer go to the Disco.”
Now, Del Vecchio is 79 years old. He’s not in the Glass demographic, and the need to expand the target audience was at least partly his point. But, as they say in politics, a gaffe is when someone is caught telling the truth in public. That’s why the Luxottica PR department later put out this statement:
“Mr. Del Vecchio was making a joke about his age. Luxottica is completely committed to its partnership with Google and we have a team working flat out to be ready to launch the device in 2015.”
Data point: this is the first time 2015 has been mentioned a date for commercial launch of Glass. Google execs had previously said “late 2014.”
