Warby Parker | We’ve Got Your Eyes Covered

How Warby Parker glasses are made

The design starts at our headquarters

Every Warby Parker frame is designed in-house, where our team puts together mood boards for inspiration, sketches initial designs, and maps out product details for prototyping.

Person sketching and designing Warby Parker glasses

We use only the best materials

From custom-designed cellulose acetate sourced from a family-run Italian factory to ultra-lightweight titanium, we use nothing but premium materials for our frames.

Looped video of Yellow powder pigment being scraped into a silver bowl, poured onto parchment paper onto of a marble white table, water being poured over yellow power, then folding the parchment paper in half mixing and spreading the yellow paste across the parchment paper.

Colored organic pigments are mixed with acetone and applied to acetate

Hundreds of square yellow acetate pieces in a pile.

Acetate is cut into small chips

Colored organic pigments are mixed with acetone and applied to acetate

Mixed yellow and black cubed chips are placed into a wooden rectangle mold and mixed together by human hands.

Mixed chips are placed into a mold and pressed together

Acetate block after acetate cubes have been melted and flattened into a sheet.

24 hours later, chips have fused into one block

Mixed chips are placed into a mold and pressed together

Five rectangle sheets of acetate made black and yellow colors being hung on clips in front of a white and grey striped wall.

Every frame is hand-assembled and polished

After raw material is cut into face fronts using a high-tech CNC machine, it’s tumbled with wood chips and hand-polished with a German wax compound. The frames are then carefully assembled and sent through a series of quality checks.

Looping video of a metal machine cutting out frame shape from a sheet of acetate of yellow and black tortoise coloring.

A CNC machine cuts a general frame shape from raw acetate sheets

Large pile of wood chips with matted acetate frame faces mixed in in a dark space with a light indirectly shining on the frame.

Face fronts are polished in tumbling barrels filled with wood chips

Yellow and black acetate frame face after being polished for an extra-glossy finish.

Frames are hand-buffed multiple times on a polishing wheel for an extra-glossy finish

Face fronts are polished in tumbling barrels filled with wood chips

Logos are carefully applied by hand

Polished yellow and black tortoise acetate frame being held by their arms by a machine to bend and flex frame to test durability.

Testing our hinges to make sure they can withstand the occasional pull, push, or nudge

Logos are carefully applied by hand

Looping video of hands placing, flipping, and bending frames on paper guide to make sure frames are straight surrounded by a watch and tools on a blue table.

When you order, a pair is made just for you

We custom-cut and polish the edges of your lenses, which have been treated with anti-reflective and scratch-resistant coatings. Our frames come standard with impact-resistant polycarbonate lenses that block 100% of UVA and UVB rays.