A patient came in last year holding their glasses together with a rubber band. The hinge had cracked, a tiny screw had gone missing, and the frame had slowly given up the fight over about three months. When I showed them a pair of ic! berlin frames, the first thing they asked was: “Where are the screws?”
There aren’t any. That’s the whole idea.
I’ve been stocking ic! berlin for over 15 years, and that question still comes up every time. It’s fair. The hinge is the one part of any frame you never think about until it fails. On almost every other pair of glasses in the world, it’s held together by a screw no bigger than a grain of rice. ic! berlin looked at that and decided there had to be a better solution.
How the screwless hinge works
The frames are made from 0.5mm cold-rolled stainless spring steel. The front and temples connect through a patented clip mechanism: they lock together under tension with no screws, no welds, no glue. The spring steel does the work. It flexes instead of bending, and it returns to shape instead of fatiguing.
In practice, that means the frame can take a serious amount of punishment. Sat on, dropped, stuffed into a bag at the bottom under a laptop. It springs back. And if something does happen, you can take the whole thing apart with your hands and clip it back together in a few minutes. No tools, no emergency repair visit, no coming back to us to fix a bent temple.
It is one of those ideas that seems obvious once you see it. When the founders proposed it in 1996, no manufacturer would touch it, so they bought the machines and made the frames themselves in a small apartment in Berlin-Mitte. The first model, “Jack,” weighed 20 grams. Less than a 20-cent coin.
What “made in Berlin” actually means
I’ve handled a lot of frames over the years. Most “handmade” eyewear means a factory somewhere turning out thousands of identical units with a heritage sticker on the box. ic! berlin is different.
The steel comes from German producers and is specced to ic! berlin’s own requirements. The fronts are cut by a family business in northern Italy. Back in Berlin, the raw pieces go through a vibratory grinding process that takes about ten hours per batch, rounding every edge into a smooth curve. Quality control happens in the same building as production. It is a small operation, and you can feel that in the weight and finish of the frame.
In late 2023 the brand was acquired by Italian eyewear group Marcolin, but production is still in Berlin. The frames are still made the same way.
One thing to know before you fall in love with a style
Because of how the inline fitting system works, ic! berlin requires a minimum lens index of 1.53. Standard 1.50 lenses won’t fit. The fitting tolerances are tighter than a conventional frame, and a lower-index lens simply can’t be seated correctly.
For most people coming to us for ic! berlin, this is not really an issue. If you are already in a mid-range or higher prescription, you are likely already in a 1.53 or above. But it is worth knowing before you get attached to a particular style, so there are no surprises at the dispensing stage. We go through this with every patient when we are fitting the frame.
It is also the kind of thing that gets quietly overlooked when frames are ordered online. Bring it to us and we sort it out properly the first time.
Is the price justified?
Patients sometimes pause at the price tag. I get it. ic! berlin sits at the premium end, and the frames look minimal. There is no logo across the temple, no obvious signal that these cost what they cost.
But you are paying for the engineering and for longevity. I have patients who have worn the same pair for eight or nine years because there is simply nothing to wear out. Compare that to replacing a cheaper frame every two or three years and the numbers start to look different.
If you want to see the same logic applied to Japanese craftsmanship, our post on Japanese handmade eyewear covers Masunaga and Dita, which approach the same question from a completely different direction.
Come and try a pair
ic! berlin is a frame you need to hold to understand. Photos do not capture the weight, the spring, or the way the temples sit. We carry a selection at Viewpoint Optical in Hurstville. Come in for a look, or call us on 02 8021 2298 to find a time that works.