A sleek facade and large windows rimmed in gray revealing, in a few colored niches, one or two pairs of glasses… At the start of autumn, a new optician moved to 17 rue des Pyramides in Paris. One again ? Not really. This shop, which soberly displays in capital letters ” The Engineer Chevallier, 1740″, is not only the heir to one of the oldest eyewear factories in Paris, but it also breaks the codes of optics for everyone, with a concept close to bespoke, without practicing luxury prices, with first pairs at 350 euros.
Indigo blue work jacket open over a waistcoat, unfailing smile and passionate bagou, Franck Bonnet bought this sleeping beauty two years ago, out of the first confinement, and still can’t believe it. For this heir to Maison Bonnet, manufacturer of custom-made glasses for All-Paris (Jacques Chirac, Yves Saint Laurent, Le Corbusier, Frédéric Beigbeder, etc.) for four generations, acquiring L’Ingénieur Chevallier was a childhood dream: “When I was a kid, and I accompanied my father, Christian, eyewear master, on his tours, we sometimes stopped here. It was a real cabinet of curiosities, very laden with lots of trinkets, old eyeglasses, lorgnettes, archives and optical books. A magical place, steeped in history. »
The glasses of kings
A story that dates back to the Age of Enlightenment when Jean-Gabriel-Auguste Chevallier inherited the brand from his maternal grandfather, then located on the Clock Tower in Paris, and gave it this beautifully pompous name. The shop attracts the greats of this world, then passes from hand to hand and moves to the right bank. Its last owner agreed two years ago to sell this jewel – yet highly coveted by large groups – to one of the Bonnet sons, the only family of craftsmen capable, in his eyes, of respecting his heritage: “We hesitated for a long time on the path to take. Then we chose, like “engineer Chevallier”, to look not a hundred years back, but a hundred years ahead. »
The tailor in the rue de Castellane
Freed from its skimpy mahogany counters and its old instruments, the shop carries the latest modern optometry devices and highlights some cutting-edge brands. Thus, the frames of a single thread of the Japanese Yuichi Toyama, those of Matsuda, with their fine guillochage, or those of the German goldsmith Gernot Lindner…
Finally, as if to weave the link with his own history, Franck Bonnet is developing his range, signed “L’Ingénieur Chevallier”. Handmade in the family workshops in Burgundy, these beautiful acetate pieces have nothing to envy to the other prestigious glasses in his boutique. Like them, they will be adjusted and shaped on a case-by-case basis.
Because finding the right frame, we learn, is first of all determining the constraints of a face, measuring the shape and angles of a nose, the gap between the pupils or the temples, taking into account its asymmetries . Only then will the choice of a color or a collection come. “For us, luxury is objects that can be kept and repaired, made of materials that acquire a patina over time”, specifies the new owner of this ultimately very modern sign.
