Mia Burton, an international e-tailer specialised in high-end sunglasses and eyeglasses founded in 2022, has announced it has merged by incorporation with Lipari, an eyewear and optical products retailer set up in Palermo, Sicily, over 50 years ago, which recently opened a new store in Milan. The goals of the operation are for the partners to boost their omnichannel business, strengthen the group structure, and create synergies between online and offline retail. Mia Burton is set to consolidate its online presence and international footprint through a data-driven approach, while Lipari will continue to concentrate on physical retail with its selection of premium brands and sector expertise.
Lipari and Mia Burton have joined forces
Mia Burton and Lipari’s joint goals include scaling operations and logistics, and increasing product customisation by sharing customer data and solutions. “In a sector like eyewear that, unlike other fashion and luxury sectors, continues to grow chiefly in the digital realm, the new entity is preparing to develop different business lines, enhancing complementary skills within a single organisation. Pursuing this operating strategy, the group is aiming for revenue of €23.7 million in 2025,” said Mia Burton and Lipari in a press release.
Mia Burton will contribute its expertise in international e-tail and premium brand management. The site is deployed in five languages – English, Italian, French, German, and Spanish – and is active virtually worldwide. Its main markets are the USA, the UK, and northern Europe, while Canada and Australia as emerging markets. Following the merger, Mia Burton intends to pursue its internationalisation path, opening new logistics hubs in the USA and Europe, and expanding its e-tail business to new markets such as the Arabian peninsula.
In 2025, notably in Q2, Mia Burton has stepped up its efforts in Italy, posting 99% growth on an annual basis.
“We are not chasing an ego project or short-term revenue. In order to become a significant force, the most important thing is to build a solid project, and a coherent one. We are imagining a path unlike that of a cash-burning start-up,” said Carlo Alberto Lipari, CEO of Mia Burton. “The merger with Lipari realises our vision of a business unit structure that multiplies existing synergies and enables us to tap new opportunities. Although Italy is a priority, we will adopt a gradual approach, since e-tail penetration in the optical sector in Italy has always been slower than in other countries. Precisely for this reason, our online focus on the Italian market continues to go hand in hand with traditional retail, and we are constantly searching for high-profile locations in [Italy’s] main cities,” he added.
Carlo Alberto and Gabriele Lipari
Lipari said that the group will continue to extend its retail footprint with new openings in Italy, focusing on the in-store experience and a direct relationship with international brands, as shown by the recent limited-edition collaboration with French brand Peter & May. Mia Burton, in addition to consolidating its position as a multi-brand platform for high-end eyewear, will focus on selling its proprietary line of progressive lenses, Mia Burton Vision.
Mia Burton currently sells 65 brands, from major luxury names such as Cartier, Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta (by Kering Eyewear), Prada and Miu Miu (by Luxottica), to niche brands such as Jacques Marie Mage, Chrome Hearts, Cutler & Gross and Kuboraum, as well as independent brands with a cult following like Peter & May, Garrett Leight, and Leight, and iconic eyewear brands like Ray-Ban, Persol and Oakley.
Artificial intelligence (AI) continues its march to transform businesses’/consumers’ lives with customer advocacy platform Mention Me launching ‘AI Discovery IQ’, a free-to-use tool that “helps brands reach target consumers in the new age of generative AI search”.
Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP/Archives
It claims to allow brands to “instantly audit how discoverable they are within popular AI systems” such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity.
According to Mention Me, 62% of UK consumers now turn to generative AI tools for product recommendations, brand discovery and comparisons, “bypassing traditional search engines entirely [so] businesses are under pressure to respond to this behaviour change,” said the platform’s CEO Wojtek Kokoszka whose platform works with firms including Charlotte Tilbury, Huel and Puma, “helping marketing teams to boost consumer awareness and sales”.
With AI, it says the modern customer journey, powered by natural language prompts instead of outdated keyword strings, means consumers are 4.4 times more likely to convert if they find a brand through a large language model (LLM).
“The rise of ‘agent-mode’ assistants and AI-driven voice search has pushed brands into a new world of digital visibility. Despite this, most brands have little to no insight into how they appear in AI-generated answers”, said Kokoszka.
AI Discoverability IQ claims to give brands an overall LLM discoverability score, specific details on areas such as technical website elements, content and structured data, and actionable recommendations to improve their AI discoverability.
Its tool generates “measurable, trackable outputs” like AI Visibility Score, brands’ prompt-based results, and a side-by-side comparisons with their competitive set. This means brands “can react quickly to improve their discoverability scores” with Mention Me’s wider suite of products and unique first-party data.
It’s also “innovating and evolving” its platform to include more capabilities, such as the ability to benchmark against competitors, to drive further improvements for marketing leaders in the age of AI.
Mention Me CMO Neha Mantri said: “AI Discoverability is not yet a named practice within most marketing teams; the same way SEO wasn’t in the early 2000s. But when up to 31% of consumers say they’re more likely to trust responses from generative AI than traditional search results, this needs to change. Mention Me is naming the problem and providing a solution at just the right time.”
A host of celebrities and high-end brands have donating goods to ensure Savile Row’s latest annual ‘Pop-Up Crisis’ store will continue to support the Crisis charity event that has so far raised over £650,000 since 2018.
Image: Crisis charity
Across 8-13 December, the pop-up store at 18-19 Savile Row in London’s Mayfair will sell a curated selection of designer clothing, past stock and samples from luxury brands.
Celebs donating goods include Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Naomie Harris, David Gandy, Jarvis Cocker, Louis Partridge, Jamie Redknapp and Emma Corrin, among others, for a week-long event and raffle with all proceeds going to help end homelessness across Britain.
Hosted by landlord The Pollen Estate, the temporary shop is also selling designer goods donated by Savile Row tailors including Mr Porter, Wales Bonner, Crockett & Jones and many other luxury brands from Barbour, Tod’s to Manolo Blahnik and Watches of Switzerland Group.
This year, celebrity model and fashion entrepreneur David Gandy will also be curating an exclusive online edit on shopfromcrisis.com, including donations from his own wardrobe as well as items from friends including Redknapp’s brand Sandbanks, Hackett and Aspinal of London.
Gandy said: “Having supported Crisis for a number of years, I’m delighted to have had the opportunity to curate my own online edit this year with the help of some of my close friends. It means a lot to know that donations from my own wardrobe are going towards such an important cause. Whether you’re looking for the perfect Christmas gift or to treat yourself, your purchase can help make a real difference to people facing homelessness this Christmas.”
Liz Choonara, executive director of Commerce and Enterprise at Crisis, added: “Pop-Up Crisis is such an iconic event in the Crisis calendar and one that we look forward to every year. We’re thrilled to be partnering with the team once again for another week celebrating the iconic craftsmanship and style of Savile Row – with all proceeds going towards our crucial work to end homelessness.”
Specialist outdoor clothing producer Dryrobe has won a trademark case against a smaller label. The win for the business, which produces waterproof towel-lined robes used by cold water swimmers, means the offending rival must now stop selling items under the D-Robe brand within a week.
Image: Dryrobe
A judge at the high court in London ruled the company was guilty of passing off its D-Robe changing robes and other goods as Dryrobe products and knew it was infringing its bigger rival’s trademark reports, The Guardian newspaper.
The company said it has rigorously defended its brand against being used generically by publications and makers of similar clothing and is expected to seek compensation from D-Robe’s owners for trademark infringement.
Dryrobe was created by the former financier Gideon Bright as an outdoor changing robe for surfers in 2010 and became the signature brand of the wild swimming craze.
Sales increased from £1.3 million in 2017 to £20.3 million in 2021 and it made profits of £8 million. However, by 2023 sales had fallen back to £18 million as the passion for outdoor sports waned and the brand faced more competition.
Bright told the newspaper the legal win was a “great result” for Dryrobe as there were “quite a lot of copycat products and [the owners] immediately try to refer to them using our brand name”.
He said the company was now expanding overseas and moving into a broader range of products, adding that sales were similar to 2023 as “a lot of competition has come in”.