Over the past five years, Romania has increasingly become a noteworthy player in the European luxury landscape. From fashion and accessories crafted for renowned labels such as Prada, Gucci, Maison Margiela, Moncler, and Louis Vuitton — all of which have production facilities in the country — to the emergence of independent, design-driven retail concepts, the local scene has evolved rapidly. Bucharest, once affectionately called “Little Paris,” is now reclaiming its cosmopolitan spirit, standing alongside cities like Vienna, Budapest or Prague in its growing appreciation for niche fashion and refined craftsmanship.
Among the new generation of boutiques shaping this movement is sunglasscurator, a small yet influential store based in Bucharest. Dedicated exclusively to independent eyewear brands, it has built a strong online presence and a reputation for curating rare and distinctive frames. This growing enthusiasm for individuality and quality marks the beginning of a new chapter for Romania — one where taste, education, and design awareness are steadily on the rise.
Below, we speak with Roxana Marcu, founder of sunglasscurator, about her journey, vision, and the evolution of the independent eyewear market in Romania.
1. How did sunglasscurator start, and what inspired its launch?
As most entrepreneurs in the independent eyewear industry, I too was driven by my obsession with frames, especially sunglasses. I started wearing optical glasses when I was 12, but in all honesty, I used to hate my eyeglasses at that time, purely because I didn’t like them. However, my quest for different, more appealing frames, only started during high school years (which was in the late 90s) and I remember being frustrated because I was not able to find a design that I enjoyed wearing. This is when I actually started replacing eyeglasses with contact lenses. And because I didn’t have any visual restriction with contacts, I started wearing more often sunglasses.
Therefore, a new pandora box was open – the quest for beautiful sunglasses, a journey that has been ongoing ever since. As you can imagine, at that time in a post-communist country like Romania the eyewear market consisted exclusively of the traditional optical stores with a very similar product offering, there wasn’t much to choose from. This was obviously the case not only for the eyewear market, but also for fashion in general, for design concepts, niche brands etc. And these were the premises until late 2000s.
Independent design was mealy represented (if not completely absent) across disciplines. That is why, soon after I finished my MBA, I decided to make use of my passion for eyewear and started working at this concept that would gather exclusive independent brands that are the best in their segment. After one year in the making, we launched sunglasscurator in June 2012 and have remained consistent and dedicated to the initial concept ever since.
2. How would you describe the independent luxury eyewear market in Romania in just one sentence?
Slowly but surely growing with all the challenges that come along.
3. How important are international customers for your business?
They are very important, of course, but their proportion in our business has been changing throughout time, especially since we opened our first store in Bucharest in 2019. Initially, we used to operate exclusively online (I still remember our first online order to this day!). After three years, we opened a small showroom where local customers could come and try on the frames and purchase them on the spot. And after another 4 years we opened the store where we are operating now. That was when our local customers’ share started increasing to become the main part of the business. However, international customers have been the main drivers of our online sales, while also coming to visit our store when visiting Bucharest.
4. What do you see as the future of independent eyewear retail in Romania?
It’s difficult to say, especially with the current situation worldwide. All markets are affected, and we all face this very palpable feeling of lack of predictability. To this day, sunglasscurator is the only retail concept dedicated exclusively to independent eyewear in Romania. Although other stores carry some independent brands, their main revenue still comes from Luxottica or Kering brands. From my perspective, betting exclusively on independent eyewear brands is pretty daring, but I was happy to take this road.
Moreover, I would say Romania is very atypical in terms of retail in general, given that most retail spaces for fashion and beauty are inside the malls, and high-street is almost non-existent. Stores are scattered around the city and are in themselves a destination, which is less convenient for customers, but also for retailers because they rarely benefit from impulse buying or spontaneous shopping. Even if for the time being our store, like all independent design stores in the city, remains a small island within the greater atypical landscape mentioned above, I am remarking a natural clustering of creative concepts in certain quarters of Bucharest. For me, independent eyewear is under the umbrella of both independent fashion and independent design, so this would be the area to explore further in our case.
5. Which are your best-selling brands and why?
This can change depending on collection and even trends sometime, but I would say for us Jacques Marie Mage and Kuboraum have constantly performed very well.
6. What are the key criteria you use when deciding which eyewear brands to bring into your portfolio?
First and foremost, I need to really like the brand and find inspiration in it. This is the main criteria. Afterward, I am looking at the different market segments that we would like to cover and try to find the best brand for that respective segment, as each brand has its own personality, design concept, followship and audience. However, I also get guided by something that is beyond perceived value of a certain brand, in a gut feeling that the brand is right for us.
7. How do you evaluate whether a brand has long-term potential versus being a short-lived trend?
I am lucky to have met personally all designers of the brands we work with and I have constant conversations with their teams, therefore I am aware of where a brand wants to go and how it sees its own future. I respect a lot brands that pace things to make sure they do it right, that take their time to build their business and that care where they are placed and how they are represented. This means they are in for the long haul and out of passion for their business, which is also how I view my own project. When we decide to add a new brand to our curated gallery, we always do so with a long-term outlook, although not all collaborations succeed to stay. I cannot stress enough the importance of maintaining a close relationship between the brand and the retailer, to constantly share information and insights in order to both create the best environment for the respective brand and also achieve common business goals.
8. How often do you typically introduce a new brand, and what signals or benchmarks do you look for before making that decision?
Not often. Our store has limited capacity for display and I don’t want to overcrowd it visually. This is why every new addition has to be meaningful and it needs to be presented in the right way. However, I do understand and feel the constant pressure of newness, I do understand customers’ desire to discover and try on new brands and collections. Without necessarily having a defined benchmark on the timing of new additions and considering the above mentions, we try to make sure not more than three season pass until we refresh the brand mix and product offering.
9. How do you approach the challenge of “dead stock” or models that don’t sell as expected?
One of the best characteristics of eyewear collections is that they do not “expire” when a new season has come, especially when you work with limited edition product releases. There can always be someone still in search of a certain piece in a certain color that is in your store. Even for the “less” limited edition frames, I find them as valid even after two-three years from their launch, sometimes even more, of course. So, in our case, we approach the notion of dead stock a bit differently. I would focus on frames that are more difficult to wear, too large or very small, with details that are difficult to integrate in an everyday outfit etc. So, for these designs, we might run sales campaigns to encourage their buying.
10. What lessons have you learned from managing unsold collections that inform your buying strategy today?
It’s very difficult to predict the success of a collection (oftentimes even for designers themselves) no matter how much you love it. But if you are true to your concept and consistently choose what you believe to be the best designs for your customers, then you are doing a great job in the long term overall. I stopped being very stressed about the buying strategy, because if the designers love the frames, I love the frames, some customers must also love those frames. We just need to make sure we reach the right customers for those frames and present them in the best way possible. With some products it may take longer than with others, but I am generally confident that we can find the perfect match between a certain design and the right customer.
11. Do you allocate resources based on sales data alone, or do factors like brand image and cultural relevance also play a role? As much as possible, we try to take all factors into consideration.
As much as possible, we try to take all factors into consideration.
12. How do you balance established names with emerging independent designers in order to keep your curation both relevant and fresh?
I’m constantly looking at the emerging independent designers. We started off with many such newly launched designers who have become serious household names in the meantime. We grew together with them and I’m hoping for the same in the future. The most important thing is what each brand brings new to the table in what it already feels like an overcrowded market, even if you look exclusively at independent eyewear brands. The freshness is brought firstly by the brands and subsequently by retailers willing to carry these brands. We just came from Paris, where we actually decided two new brand additions, one being an emerging brand that we believe in and the other a very well established one.
13. Looking ahead, what shifts do you anticipate in your brand portfolio over the next 2–3 years?
It all depends on many things really. What I can say is that, even with the current lack of predictability, I am hoping to maintain the annual growth we’ve had in the last years and to be able to expand our customer base. I believe in our current brand portfolio (including the newly added brands) and don’t anticipate changing it too much, we’ll definitely be focusing on it for the time being. However, I hope in a bigger space for our store so that we can share more designs and experiences with customers and visitors.
Conclusion
As Romania’s fashion and design landscape continues to mature, sunglasscurator stands as a symbol of dedication to independent creativity and refined aesthetics. In a market still dominated by global giants, Roxana Marcu’s vision proves that there is room — and growing demand — for authenticity, artistry, and thoughtful curation. What began as a passion for distinctive frames has become a benchmark for independent luxury retail in Eastern Europe, and a glimpse into the promising future of Romania’s eyewear culture.
