Emmanuel Macron's sunglasses just handed a small Italian eyewear company a very big day on the market. Shares of iVision Tech, which owns French luxury brand Henry Jullien, jumped nearly 28% on Thursday after the French president's appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos—while wearing aviator-style shades indoors—exploded across social media. The rally added roughly $4.1 million to the Milan-listed firm's market value. Stefano Fulchir, the company's CEO, told Reuters the sudden surge was "certainly" linked to the viral moment and identified the frames as Henry Jullien's Pacific S 01 model, which sells on the company's site for about $770. He said demand caused the website to crash.
Fulchir said he recognized the glasses and that he had sent the pair to Macron in 2024. "I said I would be happy to send him a pair but they said no. He did not accept them as a gift, but wanted to purchase them personally," he said, per the Guardian. "The French president paid a lot of attention to whether the glasses were entirely made in France." The president's office, which said Macron wore the sunglasses to shield a burst blood vessel in his eye, declined to confirm the brand. At a military event last week, Macron downplayed the eye condition, calling it "benign" and "insignificant," the BBC reports. He joked about the famous Survivor song, saying it was " l'oeil du tigre" or the "eye of the tiger."
Online, the look drew a wave of memes and comparisons to Tom Cruise's fighter-pilot character in the 1986 film Top Gun. President Trump mocked Macron in his Davos speech Wednesday, saying, "I watched him yesterday, with those beautiful sunglasses. What the hell happened?" Politico notes that wearing an eyepatch was not an option for Macron. In 2023, then-Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz was ruthlessly mocked with pirate memes after he wore one to cover an eye injury—and in France, eye patches were long associated with far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.
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