Each Ultra Limited frame is crafted from premium Italian cellulose acetate, produced by one of the world’s leading manufacturers, with a heritage of craftsmanship stretching back over more than 175 years and proprietary formulas that no industrial plastic can replicate. Because the quality of a pair of glasses doesn’t begin in the laboratory. It begins with the acetate sheet. 

Cellulose acetate is a modified natural polymer obtained from cotton or wood cellulose. It is lightweight, sturdy and biocompatible. It is a material that breathes, changes with the light and retains its properties over time. It is not a standard industrial product: it is a raw material that requires expertise to be worked to perfection. 

• Natural origin. Obtained from cotton or wood cellulose, it is more sustainable than synthetic plastics. A material rooted in nature, designed to last.
• Strength and flexibility. It bends without breaking, retains its shape over time, and ages with character. It is not as rigid as metal, nor as fragile as ordinary plastic. It falls right in the middle, and that is where its strength lies.
• Certified biocompatibility. Classified as a Class I medical device, it does not cause irritation and does not sensitise the skin. A safe material for daily contact with your face.

Colour is not a superficial layer in an acetate sheet, but rather it is integral to its structure. It is built from the inside out, layer by layer, using the block-building process: a sophisticated and complex artisanal technique that very few in the world truly know how to execute.

Acetate powder is mixed with plasticisers and pigments, formed into sheets through calendering, and then pressed into solid colour blocks. To create tortoiseshell, marbled, shading and two-tone effects, at least two different blocks are broken down and reassembled. The process can be repeated several times so as to obtain increasingly complex effects. Each finished sheet is inspected individually. 

Decades of artisanal expertise make possible this process that cannot be replicated elsewhere.

So far, the raw material. But the true story of Ultra Limited begins the moment the sheets are selected.

Each frame starts from a selection of from 8 to 12 acetate sheets. The craftsmen examine them one by one: light, contrast, chromatic balance. With 196 shades available and updated every six months, possible combinations add up to 3 trillion.

Every combination is designed to create a pattern that does not yet exist. And that will never exist again in exactly the same form.

Shape is obtained from the pressed block. Every angle, thickness or curve is calculated with micrometric precision. Prior to starting work, each block is assessed in both plan and sectional views so as not to remove the layers that determine the final colour effect. 

Form follows colour. Not the other way around.

Roughing, sanding, polishing, final tumbling. Different processes, different materials for each step. The entire process lasts more than 41 days.

The result cannot be easily explained. It can be felt. A profound, warm, living surface that bears no resemblance to anything else.

The colour of a pair of Ultra Limited glasses is not applied to the surface. It is built in, sheet by sheet. It changes with the light, the viewpoint, and the weather. Tortoiseshell, gradient, two-tone, marbled, animal prints: every pattern is created by the physical combination of different sheets. 

Since the result of each pressing forming step is unique, no two frames of the same model will ever be exactly the same.

When you wear a pair of Ultra Limited glasses, you’re wearing something that exists in no other form. That line, that vein, that particular hue exists only in that pair. Only for your eyes.

Each sheet tells a unique story. Yours is yet to be written.