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- Hello everyone and welcome to a new interview, today I'm with Sandrine Guyot, co-founder of the Friendly Frenchy brand. Hello !

- Hello!

- Can you introduce your company?

- So, Friendly Frenchy, we're called Friendly Frenchy, it's Friendly as in eco-friendly, because we try to limit our environmental impact through all our creations which are eco-designed and Frenchy as in made in France, to preserve the French know-how and all the jobs that come with it.

- And how did this idea of shell glasses come about?

- We wanted to create an essential for the seaside, hence the glasses, and in particular, we wanted to find a new eco-designed material, and in my family we worked with shells in tablettery, in marquetry, we had a factory of mother-of-pearl buttons and dominoes, which became the Mother-of-pearl museum in the west, and so there is the link with shells for the glasses.

- And how were glasses made from shells?

- How were they created? First of all, we traced the whole eyewear industry in France and then we said to ourselves that we wanted to create a different material and we tried to find sources of supply for shells. Initially, we worked on the three main shellfish, the most consumed, namely: the oyster, the mussel and the scallop. We did two years of research and development before launching our first bezel in 2018.

- Wow, that's impressive! And exactly how do you wear this kind of glasses, are they sunglasses or eyeglasses?

- So we started making sunglasses, we have 2 price ranges because there are 2 manufacturing processes in France, so we injected a first collection that we call the beach collection and we have another collection in handmade that we call the Solarmor collection today it's only sunglasses but we are working from today for the launch of our first optical collection at the end of the year.

- At least we can say that we can make the little pun at least we will see clearly!

- Yes Haha, we've never heard that one before.

- Can we book on your Friendly Frenchy website?

- You can order on our website or it is distributed to opticians mainly

- Oh yes, like who?

- Like who, for example, if we're talking about Nice, we have Bahu optics for example.

- Okay, it's made in Brittany I think.

- Yes, we're in Brittany, in Morbihan, near Vannes, but in Auray, and so the whole part of the processing of shellfish waste is done there, and for example my partner and two trainees went to collect lobster this morning, but we just work with the waste, so we went to collect the lobster bins.

- So on your website you also sell t-shirts, jumpers, beach towels...

- Yes, in fact we started in parallel to the research and development we were doing on glasses to develop the brand through products also totally made in France, so t-shirts, beach towels and many other things and now we have a new collaboration with Royal Mer where we are releasing jumpers, sailors' coats, we made the buttons with shells with the same materials as for our glasses

- Ah, yeah that's impressive, I'm fascinated by the idea of shell glasses in fact!

- So in fact for the shell glasses what we do is that we clean the shells, we grind them or micronize them and so it's a little powdered aspect not directly in the frame in the mass in fact we integrated beautiful materials and so it makes an effect

- In any case, great idea, congratulations! Thank you very much!

- Thanks to you and we hope that everyone will be able to bring the change to the end of the nose.

- For next summer?

- Exactly,

- Thank you very much Sandrine,

- Thank you very much.

- Goodbye.

- Goodbye.