leslie Muller is an eyewear tech marvel. She is co-director of VSP Global’s innovation lab, The Shop, which focuses on developing technologies for the physical and digital aspects of eyewear and eye care. She also leads the design efforts for an array of brands at Marchon Eyewear—and was instrumental in the design of the first-of-its-kind DVF Made for Glass collection for Google Glass.

More recently, The Shop debuted Level, the first wearable tech frame prototype to seamlessly integrate health-tracking technology into the temple of an optical frame. Here, EB sits down with Muller to learn more.

Cutting-edge tech prediction…

I’m most excited to see how technology integrates in a truly frictionless way. Eyewear sits in the middle of your face, so the technology—however groundbreaking—will only succeed if it lives seamlessly within a beautiful, covetable design.

Future for 3D-printed eyewear…

For the end consumer, alternative manufacturing opens up new possibilities around bespoke customization, fit, and new expressions in color and shapes. When you remove the traditional manufacturing constraints, you unleash all sorts of new potential.

Future of smart eyewear + ECPs…

Eye care and eye health should be intrinsically connected to smart eyewear. And so, beyond new revenue opportunities for ECPs, we must ensure the doctor retains a crucial role in the healthcare component of this paradigm.

News from The Shop…

We just wrapped an academic study with USC Center for Body Computing on Level, our smart eyewear prototype. Level features fitness-tracking tech in eyewear with a charitable giving component. Keep an eye out for the study results soon!

—Erinn Morgan