Why We Still Cut from a Single Block of Italian Acetate

Craft · 5 min read

There are two ways to make an acetate frame. The first is injection moulding: molten material pressed into a die, cooled, ejected. Fast, precise, scalable. The second is cutting: a solid block of laminated cellulose acetate, shaped slowly on a CNC mill, hand-finished over hours. We do the second.

The material comes from Mazzucchelli, a mill in Castiglione Olona that has been producing acetate for eyewear since 1849. Each block is a lamination of between twelve and forty sheets, depending on the pattern. The colour is not applied to the surface — it runs through the entire slab. This means that when a frame is polished, the colour deepens rather than diminishes.

What cutting gives you that moulding does not

Density. When you cut from a solid block, the material retains its original compression. Moulded acetate introduces micro-voids in the cooling process — invisible to the eye, but present in the hand. The cut frame is heavier in a way that reads as quality rather than burden. It sits differently on the face.

It also ages differently. The surface of a cut-and-polished frame takes on a patina over years of wear. The colour shifts slightly at the edges, in the way that good leather softens at the fold. A moulded frame does not do this. It simply wears.

The time it takes

From block to finished frame: approximately eleven hours of machine time, four hours of hand-finishing, two hours of assembly and quality control. Each pair of Aurel sunglasses represents the better part of two working days. We think this is the appropriate amount of time to spend on an object you will wear for a decade.

Every frame in The Gentleman and Her Signature collections is made this way, in Cadore, without exception.

— Maison Aurel, Paris