Japan’s Jins Eyewear making U.S. debut with San Francisco store, website

San Francisco – Jins Eyewear, Japan’s largest eyewear brand by volume, will open its first U.S. store on April 10, in San Francisco's Union Square neighborhood. The 4,900-sq.-ft. space will house more than 1,200 different styles of Jins exclusive eyewear.



A robot positioned at the heart of the store edges aspheric lenses on-site while customers wait. Shoppers can browse the store, purchase and receive their prescription eyewear with custom fitting in about 30 minutes. Jins collaborated with San Francisco architecture firm Kwan Henmi to create gallery-like environment that blends nature with minimalism.



"Eyeglasses are small, delicate objects that might get lost in a large space, but we made sure that they are easy to touch and try on, by organizing them in a system of simple, well-lit, repetitive grids," said Denis Henmi, president and CEO of Kwan Henmi. "This simplicity and accessibility has deep roots in the Jins brand, and are qualities that recur throughout our store design."



Jins, which operates some 330 stores in Japan and China, will also launch its U.S. e-commerce site on April 10, 2015. Customers nationwide will be able to purchase Jins eyewear online with an existing prescription, and Bay Area residents will have the opportunity to purchase their glasses online and pick them up in-store on the same day.