a century and a year
Jonathan Sceats grew up inside Australian optics. His father, optometrist C.J. Filmer Sceats, opened his practice in 1925, and Jono spent his childhood watching him test eyes and hand-fashion bespoke frames — inheriting a devotion to quality and workmanship that has never left him. After a brief detour through stockbroking, he found his way to art school via the Yellow House, the radical Sydney milieu founded by artist Martin Sharp. Then came a box of 1950s cat-eye frames, passed down from his father, and everything clicked: he began designing under his own name.
In 1980s Sydney, when the rest of the industry was playing it safe, Jonathan Sceats did the opposite. Optometrists first thought his frames too unusual, too colourful — until Vogue said otherwise. Jonathan Sceats became the number-one eyewear brand in Australia, selling over one million frames. The Powerhouse Museum holds a permanent collection of his early work, he represented Australian design at the Barcelona World Fair, served as inaugural Chairman of the Design Council at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art, and in 2018 was inducted into the Design Institute of Australia's Hall of Fame.
the eighties & beyond
jack
DE ROSS
Jack de Ross is where all of it lands. A century and a year on from that first practice, Jono still draws every frame by hand — now realised in high-density cellulose acetate, precision-made and built for independent optical practices around the world. The mantra hasn't changed: quality, comfort and fit. Neither has the reason.
"The joy is seeing someone wearing my glasses and looking really happy."
JACK de ROSS — QUALITY, COMFORT AND FIT