The founder and chairman of the world’s largest producer and retailer of glasses and frames, Leonardo Del Vecchio died on June 27 at the age of 87. The Italian businessman reached from rugs to riches and set up a huge eyewear empire, owning big brands like Ray-Ban and many more. The news of his demise was made public by his corporation.
The Italian businessman was one of the richest people in Europe. He included a flair of Italian style to the eyewear and acquired many companies and huge eyewear brands. Del Vecchio used some of his wealth to invest in some commercial groups of Italy like Mediobanca and insurers Generali.
In the year 1961, Del Vecchio had set up his corporation, Luxottica. Back then, the company was only purposed to deliver different parts of the glasses. By the year 1967, Luxottica started the sales of spectacle frames and in 1971 it became a contact manufacturing business. After which it acquired a distributor company and started its first international subsidiary in Germany. It began its first public listing in 1990 which boosted the potential of Luxottica to takeover brands like Ray-Ban.
Del Vecchio held the largest stake in Luxottica and remained the chairman of the company after it collaborated with a Franciscan company Essilor and became the biggest producer and retailer of eyewear.
Del Vecchio was a very reputed person. A number of people paid their tribute to him after hearing about his death. One among those was the Fashion architect Giorgio Armani who had worked with the Italian businessman since 1980.
The words of Armani read as Del Vecchio and he jointly came up with an anomaly that never exited. They were the ones to comprehend that eyewear can become an essential styling accessory rather than just being a classic operative object.
Del Vecchio who was partially brought up in an orphanage had a Life journey that somewhere depicted Italy’s own comeback story after the second world war.
Expressing his sadness over the demise of the businessman the Prime Minister of Italy said that Del Vecchio was a preeminent leader in the corporate world of Italy. He served for more than 60 years without any failure and had built up one of the most extensive corporations in Italy having a modest start. The Prime Minister also said that Del Vecchio was an excellent resident of the country.
According to the news reports of the country the reason behind Del Vecchio’s death was pneumonia.
