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February 22, 2021February 22, 2021

COS Celebrates 70 Years of Support and Innovation

It all began in 1951 in Montreal, where Fred and Judith Hochstadter were about to revolutionize the optical industry in Canada. COS began as a small private home office with business activities in Quebec and Ontario. Over the years, the COS Family grew from the original downtown Montreal office to its current location on the west side of the city, serving eye care professionals across Canada.

70 years and 3 generations later, the Montreal family business continues to develop strong and lasting relationships with its customers.

Looking back at a successful journey:

In 1964, the high-end eyewear manufacturer Silhouette was founded and immediately appointed COS to be the exclusive distributor of the brand in Canada. In 1993, Silhouette offered COS to distribute the adidas sport eyewear collection, a stretch which lasted for 25 years. The trust placed in COS by the Silhouette Group from the very beginning is still a source of great pride almost 60 years later.

The Danish brand Inface joined the company’s brand portfolio in 2002. A number of years later, it introduced the nifties collection, offering products specially designed for fine facial features. Recognizing the importance of this niche in eyewear, Inface and COS worked together to develop this unique collection which combines the best of Danish design, sized for small faces. When Design Eyewear Group purchased the inface brand, they finally made this vision a reality. Inface and Nifties are now two popular and trendy brands that, despite changes of ownership, chose to stay at COS.

Faced with the complexity for optical laboratories to edge and drill Silhouette rimless frames, COS decided to open its own lab. When the opportunity presented itself, COS added adidas sun Rx lenses to its lens portfolio becoming the only Silhouette distributor to develop adidas 8-base sun Rx lenses thanks to the lab which was already in place.

COS and its lab took innovation even further by creating their own brands. Fitson was launched in 2012 followed by Code in 2015. Designed in Montreal by COS employees, these brands offer new trendy and affordable products.

2021 marks the 70^th anniversary of a family initiative that continues to transform the Canadian eye care industry every day by delivering high quality services.

Click HERE for the full press release.

February 19, 2021February 19, 2021

First 360° Vision Consultation Room in the World

Essilor has launched the first 360° consultation room with long-term partner Salud Digna, offering the latest Essilor technologies and instruments to conduct comprehensive eye exams so underserved patients in Mexico can gain access to excellent quality eye care services.

As partners, Essilor Mexico, Essilor Instruments and Salud Digna have introduced innovative technologies to provide patients with comprehensive eye exams at Salud Digna’s clinic in Culiacán, Mexico.

Raising the bar for excellence in eye examinations, the 360° consultation room hosts advanced equipment and protocols that assess eye health with the highest accuracy and in the shortest possible time to determine prescriptions for lenses with maximum precision as well as detect early-stage eye diseases so action can be taken quickly.

Essilor instruments featured in the new room include:

The WAM 800 – a 7-in-1 automatic instrument for comprehensive eye physiology analysis and vision correction assessment.
The Vision R 800 – a more accurate phoropter for more precise refraction (at 0.01 D) that makes the procedure easier for the practitioner to determine a fully reliable prescription and provides patients with a more comfortable and immersive experience for higher confidence.
The Retina 800 – a fully automated, non-mydriatic and high-definition retinal imaging camera combined with Artificial Intelligence algorithms that provides an accurate assessment of the health of the retina and helps detect the most prevalent pathologies, such as diabetic retinopathy.

Click HERE for the full press release.

February 19, 2021May 19, 2026

Converse Launches New Collection

New sun and optical Converse collections designed under this partnership with Marchon are now available globally since January 2021. With a classic yet modern approach, the eyewear assortment addresses adults and teens with 16 sunglasses and 43 optical styles at compelling price points. Customers can expect to see a mix of classic and trend-right shapes with the brand’s unique colour palettes and design features that will be familiar to the avid Converse fan. The brand targets all genders and ages 12 – 35, but truly resonates around the world and across generations.

Distributed in Canada by Marchon Eyewear: www.marchon.com

February 19, 2021February 19, 2021

ReNue Merges with Premier Medical Aesthetics Clinic Skinpossible

ReNue, a doctor-led aesthetic medicine company and division of FYidoctors, announced it has merged with of one of Calgary’s leading medical aesthetic clinics, Skinpossible. With today’s announcement, ReNue expands to seven Canadian locations, furthering the reach of its high-quality therapeutic and aesthetic treatments, and presence in the aesthetic medicine industry.

Founded by Roberta Segar in 2009, Skinpossible was established to help individuals look and feel their best. Segar, an entrepreneur with a background in fitness and nutrition discovered an opportunity to provide Calgarians with a world-class clinic experience by combining professionalism and luxury through her own diligent research in the early 2000s. Through years of training alongside experts in the field, and working exclusively with premiere technology, equipment, and products, Skinpossible has evolved into a leading medical aesthetic provider in the Calgary market.

“Skinpossible is one of the largest and most recognized clinics in Western Canada, and we’re pleased to now call them partners,” said Dr. Jason McWhirter, VP and Chief Medical Officer of FYidoctors’ Medical Aesthetics Division. “The industry continues to experience exponential growth and we look forward to working alongside a clinic known for both its advanced technology and techniques.”

Click HERE for the full press release.

My Vision Show Goes Virtual – 24/7/365

My Vision Show, the ever-growing virtual showcase, is back with a brand-new event, Share Your Vision on March 25-28, 2021.

In addition to hosting a variety of vendors and speakers, the Share Your Vision Showcase will also serve as the launch of My Vision Show Galleria, the first-ever virtual conference centre within the eye care industry that will be open year-round.

“It’s going to be the show that never ends,” says Charlene Nichols, creator, and producer of My Vision Show. After March 25, the platform will remain open with the availability to host exhibitors and meeting events year-round.

Participating My Vision Show exhibitors will transform their booths into “virtual showrooms” throughout the year and will be able to host private events in conjunction with existing and upcoming local and national industry events.

The Spring 2021 show theme, ‘Share Your Vision’, will highlight new products and host a range of speakers from various segments of the industry. The show will feature content from several popular speakers within the eye care and optical industries including Jon Herring, Barry Santini, and Dr. Babak Kamkar. My Vision Show will also be premiering emerging technologies such as new vendors including accessiBe.

Debut of New Platform
My Vision Show is powered by leading virtual meeting technology and can now host up to 100,000 participants for their March show and beyond.

The new platform is designed to not only facilitate virtual meetings but to ensure that industry professionals can truly connect during My Vision Show and year-round.

As pioneers in virtual networking, My Vision Show is now offering a free certification to all exhibitors which will allow them an opportunity to learn how to leverage virtual networking to re-establish their connection to their audience.

My Vision show will also continue to host social events including virtual happy hours to keep the community connected and plans to add gamification in future programming.

Centrepiece CE “when and where you want it“
Continuing Education will play a key role in My Vision Show. Accredited CE will be available from My Vision Show on a continual basis through a collaboration with CRO Journal, for Optometrists and OptikConEd.com, for Opticians.

“We are encouraged by the emerging talents and fresh ideas that are being presented by our future educators. We could not be more proud to be partnered with an educational platform that focuses 100% on the needs of independent opticians and optometrists,” says Charlene Nichols.

Those interested in showcasing a product or service, and those who want to register for the limited-time free admission can do so on myvisionshow.com

Click HERE for the full press release.