SILMO Paris 2026 · Trade show report
The report goes past the stand displays and the SILMO d'Or results to the competitor moves and supply chain changes that matter for your next planning cycle. Six senior consultants covered every hall and interviewed around 120 exhibitors, September 25 to 28.
EUR 3,500 plus VAT where applicable, with one hour of consultation included. Available in English and Chinese.
Hall 6, Paris Nord Villepinte, SILMO Paris 2025. Photo: Stéphane Lauré for SILMO Paris.
Who this is for
You lead a region or a category from headquarters, and you hear about the show from a subsidiary or distributor, each with its own interests. This report gives you an independent view to compare with theirs before your next planning cycle.
You run a company in one segment and spent the show at your own stand or in meetings. While you were busy, suppliers and competitors in other halls showed their plans for the year ahead. The report covers those halls in the detail you would have wanted.
You sell into the industry, or invest in it, and want to know where end demand is heading before your next planning round. The report looks at each segment from the buyer's side, so you see changes in demand early.
Every reader receives the same report. In the one-hour consultation, we go through it with you for your own markets and products.
Inside the report
The findings a board needs, on the first two pages. Each one names the exhibitor and the product, and gives our interpretation.
AI and connected eyewear. Personalization and fitting. The convergence of retail and medical. Sustainability claims and the evidence behind them. The SILMO Talks program, and what it says about the year ahead.
Ophthalmic lenses, frames, smart eyewear and retail concepts, telemedicine and tele-expertise, instruments and equipment, with a shorter review of contact lenses. Each segment lists the exhibitors that changed direction, what they showed, and a short "So what" for buyers in that category.
The SILMO d'Or 2026 results, and what the jury's choices say about each category.
Every fact carries its source. Interpretation is marked as our reading. The full methodology is available on request.
For each finding, the report names the exhibitor, the product and the conversation behind it.
[Replace the page with one from the 2026 report and remove this note.]
Executive synthesis · Theme 02
Biometric customization moved from a lens-only story to a frame-and-lens story. Rodenstock's B.I.G Exact Sensitive and Optiswiss's Biometrics Horizon both build lens design around measurements taken in-store: axial length, center of rotation, pupil diameter. On the retail side, the Digital Color Box reproduces an exact sunglass tint at the counter with a camera and an LED rig.
On the floor
So what
Personalization is shifting from a lab-side promise to a capability an optician can demonstrate on the spot. That changes the sales conversation, and shifts the advantage to lens makers that can supply the measurement hardware with the lens.
Sources: [exhibitor material, floor interview].
Method
The team divides the show floor by segment, so each consultant covers the category they have worked in. Interviews follow one questionnaire, which keeps answers comparable from one exhibitor to the next.
Before a claim reaches the page, a back-office analyst checks it against the exhibitor's own material, public filings and trade press. Where a claim cannot be verified, the report says so.
Photos: Stéphane Lauré for SILMO Paris, SILMO Paris 2025.
About
Unseen Perspective is a market intelligence firm specialized in eyewear and vision care. These two markets are all we work in.
I am an optometrist by training and spent more than 25 years inside the industry before starting Unseen Perspective, at Essilor Instruments and Visionix, including Optovue, Luneau, Briot and Weco. I also co-founded an optical retail business and am a named inventor on patented ophthalmic technologies. That experience shapes our questionnaire and the analysis in every So what.
We cover eight to nine trade shows a year with one method, take on consulting engagements for companies entering the market or repositioning within it, and from late November publish The Eyewear Signal, a weekly briefing on the eyewear market.
Price
Request
Complete the form and you receive sample pages from the 2026 report within one business day. If you would like to discuss the report first, choose the call option and we propose two time slots by email. If you have decided, choose the order option and the invoice comes with the sample pages.
Every request is read and answered personally by our team.
