Italiano 
Some people have ideas, others make them happen. In some fields, such as art for example, it is often one and the same person. In others, like industry, it is more than one.
As Sonia and Mirco Berdusco – the owners of B.I. COLOR tell us – some people have imagination while others are more practical and when you find a balance between these two qualities, outstanding results and continuous innovation follow.
B.I. COLOR was set up in 1989 in Valdobbiadene, an area famous not only for its prosecco but also eyewear manufacturing. It is here that, 35 years ago, Mirco opened his company, specialising in industrial coatings.
At the outset, says Sonia, the company focused on coating plastic and metal eyewear, costume jewellery and fashion accessories like buckles and buttons.
«My brother has always been in charge of production, overseeing everything to do with coating, prepping the colours and the different special effects you can achieve. When I joined the company a couple of years later, I was responsible for the commercial and administrative side of things.»
Specialists who deliver highly original solutions
Over the years, the company decided to specialise and this decision enabled it to raise its quality standards and offer special techniques.
«We decided to concentrate on metal, because if you have to make changes or corrections to it, the colour can be removed using special acids, making it easier to treat the parts again afterwards.
You have a lot more options: you can apply more colours and introduce things like raised details on the rim, end-pieces and temples. If you’re creative with metal, you can come up with some really original ideas.»
Having specialist knowledge means B.I. COLOR can carry out certain treatments with a manual element: «As well as coating metal, we decorate by hand using a syringe, a technique requiring a high degree of artisan skill.»
There are a number of women at B.I. COLOR specialised in this art, which calls for the utmost precision. The parts they decorate are tiny and the degree of detail they manage to achieve really makes the difference.
Focusing on quality, not quantity
As well as opting to specialise in metal, the company made another important decision regarding its client base. «Most of our clients are eyewear manufacturers of medium to high-end products, so they come to us with more unusual requests, such as raised or recessed coloured details on the temples, end-pieces, rims and bridges. We still work with manufacturers of fashion accessories and costume jewellery».
«Our policy has always been not to focus on quantity because otherwise we’d never be able to cope with all the original artisan techniques we offer».
«Our clients send us their semi-finished eyewear and parts which we then treat with sandblasting, satin finishing and galvanising (which we don’t actually do in-house but outsource to a company nearby) and colouring. Sometimes clients ask for a specific colour, while others are a bit on the vague side, suggesting a certain shade, so it’s up to us to come up with different options which the client can choose from.»
«The different people on our team handle the different stages in the process: pre-coating washing, coating and masking if needed for multi-coloured parts, syringe decoration, laser marking to customise the glasses. After the parts have been cured in the oven to fix the colour, they have reached the final stage in the process: quality control. Quality control is of the utmost importance to us because flaws on objects and details which are that small can be microscopic.»
Pushing the envelope with production
Unusual requests are the order of the day and can often be challenging to realise. Designers are constantly pushing themselves to create something unique and unusual and it is up to B.I. COLOR to turn these aspirations into reality.
«It’s not always easy to deal with some of the stranger requests we receive, because there are criteria we have to respect in our work. For instance, every part we coat needs its own frame to support it (you can’t just hold it in your hand), but when a designer draws it in 3D, he’s nearly always thinking of the end product and seldom thinks of the difficulties you can have during the various stages in its creation. This is where we come in – we have to come up with solutions to ensure the designer’s idea can be executed.»
It’s the usual balancing act between an idea and its execution. Some people bring imagination to the table, others are more practical. It is thanks to the ability to engage in constructive dialogue and come up with innovative solutions that the Italian eyewear industry is the world leader in the production of high-end glasses.
«We’ve worked with D.F. since the beginning of 2023 and we got on well from the get-go. We’ve worked on some exciting products together for individual parts and, since they are familiar with the demands of production, their asks are always within the realm of feasibility.»
Sonia Berdusco, Head of Administration and Sales at B.I. COLOR, and Mirco Berdusco, Head of Production
