There is a moment that happens when someone picks up a Gold & Wood frame for the first time. They turn it over, they find the grain running along the temple, and they go quiet. Wood is not what anyone expects to be holding. We carry Gold & Wood at City Optix, and it is the frame that stops the most conversations in the shop, usually mid sentence.
Here is what the house actually is, what it does that almost nobody else does, and how to tell whether a wood frame belongs on your face. If you want to see where it sits among the other independent houses we carry, that is a good place to begin.
What is Gold & Wood eyewear?
Gold & Wood is a Luxembourg eyewear house. Maurice Leonard founded it in 1995 in Hosingen, a small town in the north of the country, and built it around a single idea: that eyewear could be made from the materials people already trust for the objects they keep for life. Fine furniture. Instruments. Watch cases. Wood, horn, precious metal.
So that is what the frames are made from. Real wood, cut and shaped and finished by hand. Buffalo horn. Titanium. Gold on some pieces, and diamonds on the highest ones. The name is not a flourish, it is a materials list.
What comes out of that workshop does not look like what most people picture when they hear “wooden glasses.” There is nothing rustic about it. The work is spare and precise, and the house even makes a rimless line where the lenses hang off fine wood temples with almost no hardware in sight. It reads as jewelry more than eyewear.
What makes Gold & Wood frames different?
The material, and then the labor the material demands.
Wood is not a forgiving thing to build eyewear out of. It moves, it splits, it refuses to be identical twice. Leonard was the first person to work out how to make a frame entirely from precious wood, and the house has been refining that since 1995 with a small team of craftspeople doing the work by hand. Every frame is effectively one of a kind, because the grain on yours came from one specific piece of wood and will never repeat.
The woods themselves are the interesting part. Ebony, bubinga, amaranth, tanganika, each with its own color and figure, from pale and lively to nearly black. They come from FSC certified plantations rather than rainforest, and the buffalo horn is sourced without harming the animals, which matters to more of our clients every year. The wood is also waterproof, hypoallergenic, and remarkably light.
Real wood, buffalo horn, titanium, gold. The name is a materials list, not a flourish.
That lightness surprises people in the opposite direction from what they assume. A wood frame sits easily on the bridge instead of pressing into it, and the wood and horn sit warm against the skin rather than cold. If you have spent years in heavy acetate, the difference on hour ten of a workday is not subtle. The hinges are worth a mention too. Gold & Wood’s spring hinge was built for them by a Swiss watchmaker, which tells you how the house thinks about the parts nobody sees.
The work has been recognized where it counts. Gold & Wood has taken Silmo d’Or awards in Paris, the design prize the eyewear industry actually pays attention to.
Who Gold & Wood is for
This is a frame for someone who has already found their own taste and does not need it validated.
There is no logo doing the work here. Nothing is stamped across the temple. The signal is the material itself, and it only registers for people who look closely, which is exactly the appeal. You will not be recognized for wearing an expensive brand. You will be recognized for wearing something nobody else has.
No logo. The material is the signal, and only some people will catch it.
That instinct is familiar around here. The Marina is full of people who own a few genuinely good things and wear them without ceremony. The watch that was a decision. The coat that gets repaired instead of replaced. A Gold & Wood frame belongs in that category. It is bought once, worn constantly, and noticed by the right people.
It suits anyone drawn to natural materials, warm tones, and design that gets quieter the more it costs. It also suits the person who has worn metal and acetate for twenty years and wants to feel something genuinely different on their face for the first time in a long while.
How to tell if Gold & Wood is right for you
A few honest things worth knowing before you come in:
- Hold one before you decide anything. Nothing about a wood frame translates in a photograph. The grain, the warmth, the lightness, all of it lives in the hand. Ten seconds of holding one answers the question faster than any amount of reading.
- Match the wood to your own coloring. These are natural tones, so a pale figured bubinga and a near black ebony do very different things next to different skin and hair. This is a case where the frame you would have picked online is often not the one you leave with.
- Expect to treat it like a good object. Wood asks for a case and a little care, and it rewards both. If you are the person who drops glasses loose into a bag, we should talk about that first, honestly.
- Get the fitting right, then trust it. These frames are precise, and precise frames need a proper adjustment to sit correctly. That part is ours. Bring the frame to us and we will make it disappear onto your face.
Frequently asked questions
Where can I try Gold & Wood eyewear in San Francisco?
At City Optix, 2154 Chestnut Street, in the Marina District. We carry Gold & Wood and can put the real materials in your hands, which is the only way to choose a wood frame.
Where are Gold & Wood frames made?
In Luxembourg. Maurice Leonard founded the house in Hosingen in 1995, and the frames are still handcrafted there by a small team.
What are Gold & Wood frames made of?
Real wood, including ebony, bubinga, amaranth, and tanganika, along with buffalo horn, titanium, gold, and diamonds on certain models. The materials are the design.
Are wooden eyeglass frames durable?
Yes, when they are built properly. Gold & Wood’s woods are waterproof and hypoallergenic, and the spring hinge was engineered for them by a Swiss watchmaker. Like any fine material, wood does best with a case and an occasional check in with your optician.
Come feel the grain in person
You cannot choose a Gold & Wood frame from a screen. The whole argument for it is physical, the warmth of the wood, the lightness, the grain that belongs to your frame and no one else’s. Come try them on at City Optix on Chestnut Street. We have spent thirty years on this block putting Marina faces in frames that were chosen rather than settled for, and this is one of the more enjoyable conversations we get to have.