By Delia Paunescu: Assistant Editor

 
Store owner Jenny Ma (l) and Luxeye associate Lilah Oren look over the tower of eyeglasses cupcakes
Most eyewear retailers work to maintain exclusivity. They might be the only one to carry a designer’s line in a specific region or the only store to offer a particularly low price. But in the case of Jenny Ma’s two Luxeye (pronounced lux’ee) practices, regional exclusivity is not as important as exceptional customer service.

After finishing her MBA in marketing and entrepreneurship a year and half ago, Ma was walking down the streets of Williamsburg, a neighborhood in New York City’s Brooklyn borough, and noticed that it was lacking in optical practices. “I’ve been in the optical business for a long time. My family owns seven opticals throughout the metropolitan area and I started working at Hunter Vision Center in Flushing, Queens when I was 16,” she said, calling the 12-year-old practice the “one that really influenced and inspired me.” On opening her first Luxeye in Brooklyn, Ma added: “I learned my techniques in the business from watching my parents. So I took what I learned in the past and what I learned in school and decided to help Williamsburg. I saw an opportunity here, a need for a really good optical shop.”

It helps that the neighborhood Ma chose to set up shop in is a trend spotter’s dream come true. Members of the ideal ad demographic (ages 18-25) wander the streets in all manner of dress and are quite experimental with their eyewear. But even while anything goes fashion-wise, residents and visitors alike still want a good deal. “Even though it’s expensive to live here, a lot of our residents don’t have insurance so we have to accommodate them as best we can. We try to offer frames that are $99 or even complete pairs for $99,” Ma said.

   
Customers and artists from the neighborhood filled the new Luxeye location during the grand opening party on March 25, 2011. For the new Luxeye in south Williamsburg, Ma hired Eye Designs to help create a "clean, modern, simple" look.
Accommodating her customers was also top of mind when Ma decided to open a second Luxeye location in the same neighborhood in March. “We had great response from our customers at the north location. That encouraged me to open my location in the south side of Williamsburg,” she said, referring to the two shops as “north” and “south” because of their locations in relation to the neighborhood’s divider, Metropolitan Ave. Both stores are located on Bedford Ave. less than half a mile away from each other.

Besides selling glasses, Luxeye also provides eye exams and contact fittings and both locations have an OD available seven days a week—Katelyn Rogerson, OD, and Kaajal Patel, OD, who cover both locations, according to Ma. The boutiques also do their own lens cutting and Ma praises Santinelli edgers for helping with quick turnaround.

While sharing a design aesthetic of cool, simple and modern, the two locations vary in their brand selections: north carries Tom Ford, Alain Mikli, Mykita while south has Chloe, Derek Lam and Oliver Peoples, among others.

   
Photographs and paintings submitted for the show were displayed alongside Luxeye’s frames during the opening night event. Models hired for the event wore a variety of frames sold at Luxeye during the grand opening party.
For the south location’s grand opening event, Ma held a party that incorporated the area she loves to serve. By placing ads in neighborhood magazines and sending e-mail to her existing customers, she called on local artists to submit their own eyewear-related artwork. On the evening of the opening, the new location was filled with models sporting Luxeye’s latest offerings, decorated frames, photographs, paintings and even a tower of cupcakes, each adorned with a pair of mini edible sunglasses in their own eyewear case. “It was everything glasses but it was a great party as opposed to a promotional evening,” Ma recalled.

For the next couple of years, Ma plans to make her dual locations stronger. She’s interested in building Luxeye’s exposure locally and adding customers throughout the neighborhood before she considers expanding: “Our focus for the stores is on fashion and eyewear. That describes our Williamsburg customer perfectly because there are a lot of artistic people here.” ■

dpaunescu@jobson.com