SILMO 2026 Wraps - Eco-Acetate Moves From Buzzword to Buyer Question
Leeyewear
SILMO 2026 wraps today, September 28, after four days at Paris Nord Villepinte. Organizers billed this year's edition at close to 900 exhibitors and more than 1,500 brands, with some 34,000 visitors expected over the four days.
Oversized acetate, thin titanium, and acetate-titanium builds filled the floor again. The note worth keeping for buyers came out of the Responsible Company Prize, announced on September 26 during the SILMO d'Or ceremony.
Andy Wolf Eyewear won the prize. The figures in its entry are the ones that stuck: 85 percent of its acetate frames now use Eastman Acetate Renew - a sheet made from wood-pulp cellulose sourced from sustainably managed forests and certified recycled content, produced through molecular recycling. The brand reports a 53 percent drop in the product footprint of those acetate frames between 2021 and 2024, and a 38 percent drop across its metal range.
Another finalist, Regenesis Materials, is an eight-person company in Indonesia. It builds frames from traceable recycled material and sends production offcuts back into acetate sheet.
That is where the buyer conversation now sits. Lead time, price, and whether the sheet still looks and feels like acetate when it lands on the table - those are the questions that come up first.
For sun, we already run that work on our recycled-acetate ECO line: recycled acetate sheet, cut and polished as a premium sun frame - color depth, hand feel, and a finish that holds. It gives a DTC brand a material story it can put on its own page without stretching the claim.
Optical follows the same logic. A bio-based or recycled acetate front for the statement look, paired with lighter titanium temples when the brief wants color up front and light weight for all-day wear. See our acetate sunglasses and titanium optical frames.
We keep one rule. Sustainable acetate still has to pass the hand test. We approve the sheet, run the same sample round, and only sign off when the weight, polish, and edge match what a buyer expects from acetate. The claim has to survive a customer picking the frame up off the counter.
On sheet supply, we run the programs the industry already runs: bio-based acetate from long-established Italian mills, and recycled acetate from established mills in China. If a brief names a specific sheet, we source to that spec. Bio-based sheet and recycled sheet are separate options; the build does not change. Private-label MOQ on this line is 300 pcs per model. A new acetate prototype is typically 2–4 weeks; existing constructions sample faster.
If the next range needs an eco capsule, a recycled-acetate sun line, or an optical front with a material story a buyer can check, send the brief. We will come back with sheet options, weight, and lead time.
Leeyewear - eyewear manufacturer, China. Private-label acetate sunglasses and titanium optical frames.
Sources
SILMO Paris - show dates, 25–28 September 2026, Paris Nord Villepinte; exhibitor and visitor figures
SILMO Paris, 2026 Responsible Company Prize finalists - Andy Wolf and Regenesis Materials figures
Vision Monday - prize finalists and footprint reductions
Eastman - Acetate Renew composition and process