{"id":44967,"date":"2026-03-21T00:23:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T00:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/44967\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T00:23:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T00:23:20","slug":"sven-marquardt-stars-in-ic-berlin-30th-anniversary-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/44967\/","title":{"rendered":"Sven Marquardt Stars in Ic! Berlin 30th Anniversary Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBERLIN<\/a> \u2014 Inside the two-story headquarters of indie eyewear<\/a> brand Ic! Berlin<\/a> here, a portrait of Sven Marquardt<\/a>, the legendary bouncer at the city\u2019s techno heaven Berghain, hangs on a wall.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlongside Dalad Kambhu, a Berlin<\/a>-based Thai American chef awarded a Michelin star, and South Korean dancer Youngchan Moon, among others, Marquardt is one of the faces fronting the brand\u2019s 30th anniversary<\/a> campaign.<\/p>\n

\n\tShot by Tarek Mawad, he is portrayed wearing the brand\u2019s Xenon sunglasses, part of an anniversary<\/a> capsule collection designed to celebrate three decades of innovation, best epitomized by the company\u2019s signature minimalist frames crafted from cold-rolled stainless-steel with a screwless hinge.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the story goes, fresh off university and broke in 1996, Ralph Anderl, alongside friends Philipp Haffmans and Harald Gottschling, masterminded the screwless invention, decided to apply it to stainless-steel eyewear<\/a> and wore some prototype pairs to a gallery event in Berlin. During the night, more than 30 attendees congratulated them on the cool shades they were wearing and, upon hearing the story, placed their personal orders.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Dalad<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tDalad Kambhu starring in the Ic! Berlin 30th anniversary campaign.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTarek Mawad\/Courtesy of Ic! Berlin<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2023, Ic! Berlin was acquired by Italian eyewear powerhouse Marcolin<\/a> for an undisclosed sum, as reported. Now the brand is fully integrated into VSP Vision<\/a>, Marchon\u2019s parent company, which purchased Marcolin<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor 30 years, Ic! Berlin has stood for uncompromising design, engineering and innovative premium eyewear made in Berlin. This anniversary honors our proud heritage and sets the stage for a new chapter of global growth, brand storytelling and modern, technical eyewear,\u201d said the brand\u2019s general manager Davide Lunghi, a LVMH Mo\u00ebt Hennessy Louis Vuitton veteran who joined Ic! Berlin in November 2023.<\/p>\n

\n\tOver the past 30 years, Ic! Berlin has toyed with more innovations, for example introducing the Silk collection of feather light frames featuring a second-generation, patented, screwless hinge system, as well as materials, such as buffalo horn, acetate, rubber, 3D printing and the patented Flexarbon, crafted from seven-layer carbon achieved via aerospace technology, among others.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe brand has also had its celebrity moments, most notably crafting a pair of oversize aviators for Prince\u2019s 2015 \u201cHitnRun\u201d album cover. Other A-list fans include Alicia Keys, who\u2019s been photographed wearing the Boombox X frames, Madonna and Brad Pitt.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt Ic! Berlin\u2019s premises in the Marzahn neighborhood, where the brand relocated a decade ago from the original headquarters in the Mitte borough, production is vertically integrated and entirely handled in-house, with about 200,000 pair of frames manufactured a year. Any given eyewear piece requires about 50 production steps, from laser cutting of both metal sheets and carbon fiber, to temples and fronts bending, through to grinding, polishing, and coloring. Each pair goes through 15 quality checks across the entire production.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Inside<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tInside the Ic! Berlin HQs in Berlin.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Ic! Berlin<\/p>\n

\n\tThe minimal, at times sci-fi, quality of Ic! Berlin\u2019s sun and prescription frames\u00a0as well as its in-the-know, niche positioning have gained the brand a cult following.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOur target client is a \u2018technical aesthete,\u2019\u201d Lunghi said in an interview, mentioning high-net-worth professionals with a penchant for minimal, no-logo gear. \u201cI think Ic! Berlin is also benefiting from the appeal of independent eyewear on consumers and the vintage, \u201890s-inspired trend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 30th anniversary campaign, titled \u201cI See Berlin\u201d and centered on the characters shaping the city\u2019s vibrant and raw cultural milieu, offers a new perspective on the brand\u2019s target consumer, he observed.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s a new cohort on the horizon, of the so-called \u2018digital adventurers,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cPeople like Sven [Marquardt] are the embodiment of a new mindset of making the impossible look possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Thilo<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThilo Reich starring in the Ic! Berlin 30th anniversary campaign.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTarek Mawad\/Courtesy of Ic! Berlin<\/p>\n

\n\tOther talents include artist Nina Pohl; Berlin-raised but London-based DJ Nunguja Kisalya, and interdisciplinary architect and artist Thilo Reich. Images are flanked by a product-focused digital animation by Leif Podhajsky.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe anniversary collection comprises seven sunglasses, five of which are tweaked reeditions of archival designs. All crafted from stainless-steel with a chrome color treatment, they include teal temple tips and photochromic lenses in the same shade that darken, shifting from light blue to dark green while adapting to sunlight.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe wanted to have something from the past and decided, of course, to go for the chrome color, which is one of the first colors Ic! Berlin has ever had, and it\u2019s just pretty much a polished, naked steel. It\u2019s the essence, where it all started from,\u201d said head of design Anna Quentin. \u201cWe were also very sure that we wanted to have old time bestsellers in there, redesigned in more contemporary versions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"The<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe \u201cOli the 2nd\u201d sunglasses part of Ic! Berlin\u2019s 30th anniversary capsule collection.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSebastian Busse\/Courtesy of Ic! Berlin<\/p>\n

\n\tIc! Berlin is distributed through 3,200 doors internationally. The number of markets \u2014 standing at 125 \u2014 has almost doubled since the Marcolin acquisition in 2023, with the best-performing ones including Germany, Asia \u2014 led by Thailand and Taiwan \u2014 as well as North America. Italy is among the top 10 markets as well, Lunghi said.<\/p>\n

\n\tIc! Berlin\u2019s most recent push in Southeast Asia has paid off. The brand currently counts two flagships in Bangkok, the most recent opened in 2025, and one in Taipei, in addition to the historical unit on Berlin\u2019s M\u00fcnzstra\u00dfe, which is to be revamped in June.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re heavily focusing on China where, since 2025, we\u2019ve stepped on the gas. It\u2019s very underexplored by brands in line with our positioning so we believe there\u2019s an opportunity there. The country\u2019s performance has been growing in the high-double-digit range over the past year and a half,\u201d Lunghi explained.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for the U.S., Ic! Berlin has been focusing on key coastal locations where it caters to different customer targets, more conservative on the East Coast and slightly more fashion-forward on the West Coast, the executive explained. He sees the integration with VSP Vision fueling the brand\u2019s expansion Stateside and didn\u2019t rule out leveraging the eyewear group\u2019s retail prowess to open an Ic! Berlin\u2019s flagship in the country.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Inside<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tInside the Ic! Berlin HQs in Berlin.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Ic! Berlin<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn Europe we\u2019re really working on brand awareness and equity, but we also see an opportunity to further test retail waters and offer a more comprehensive vision of the brand,\u201d he said. To this end, talks are ongoing in Italy for pop-ups and corners at department stores.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough VSP Vision doesn\u2019t report financials or break down revenues per brand, Lunghi said that 2026 kicked off on an upbeat note for Ic! Berlin, with double-digit growth in the first quarter of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERLIN \u2014 Inside the two-story headquarters of indie eyewear brand Ic! Berlin here, a portrait of Sven Marquardt,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[4202,112,25537,190,25538],"class_list":{"0":"post-44967","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-berlin","8":"tag-anniversary","9":"tag-berlin","10":"tag-eyewear","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-marcolin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116264317946251414","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}