It was early and there was no coffee but Alain Mikli, the French designer of eyewear to the stars, was in the mood for love.
This was quite an achievement for a man who had arrived late at Chiang Kai-shek International Airport the night before and would be opening his biggest store later that day, in the Xinyi district of Taipei.
Mikli, who is described as having a passion for eyewear, was impeccably dressed in a signal-red shirt, slacks, pointed shoes and his trademark glasses. He was charm personified.
The 51-year-old readily posed for photos with the hotel staff and was unfailingly polite, despite the hubbub that surrounded him.
This was not surprising, perhaps, for a man who is used to the limelight and has come a long way since making his first pair of frames at 17 and worked as an optometrist after graduation.
As a successful businessman, whose company sells 600,000 glasses a year and has a turnover of around US$70 million, Mikli spends most of his time jetting around the world, keeping an eye on his franchises.
His glasses sell for around US$400 a pair and are viewed as an essential fashion item by the visually impaired who have style and money.
Elton John, Sharon Stone and Alain Delon are among his big-name celebrity clients. Samuel Jackson buys eight pairs of Alain Mikli glasses at a time.
Asked whether Elton John was difficult to deal with, Mikli said, "Not really. He's a star and needs to be treated specially."
The interview, in his suite at the Hyatt last week, was going fairly well. He talked about his love for acetate as a material to make glasses (it's 70 percent made of cotton and is easy to sculpt) and explained why eyewear was sexy.
"They are important as a first impression. [By] wearing glasses you can hide and you can play with your personality. You can change your glasses and your style. Glasses can talk for you, they can help you communicate," Mikli said.
He also said Asian men were more expressive than Western men when it came to wearing glasses and would sometimes choose frames for women that looked good on them.
As for his design philosophy, he said he never used a computer because it "is just a calculator. When you make [a pair of glasses] by hand you can feel the product and make it something that is human, for real life."
Mikli then tried to make an analogy between his passion for eyewear, playing with the frames of glasses and women. It was at this point that he started drifting off cue and became more interested in getting a female journalist present to agree to dinner.
Our interview was over.
Later, at the opening of his new boutique on the first floor, at 297, Zhongxiao E Road Sec 5, Taipei, (
Clearly, glasses do have sex appeal, especially when you own the company.
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