Designer Notes: How a Winter in New Zealand Became True Nature

Everything begins with light. Over the past 25 years, I've been asked countless times where new ideas come from. The truth is, I still don't know the answer.

I've never developed products because the market asked for them. I've developed them because I personally missed them. As a designer. As someone who wears prescription glasses. As a runner. And as someone who simply loves being outdoors.

Maybe that's exactly why new ideas rarely appear behind a desk. They find me while running, while traveling, or in those quiet moments when I suddenly begin to see something differently than before. As a designer, I've always been fascinated by light, colors, and form. At the same time, I know from personal experience how profoundly good vision shapes the way we live. It creates confidence, builds trust, and allows movement to become effortless. That's why, ever since founding SIOLS, I've never accepted the idea that people should have to choose between exceptional vision, uncompromising performance, and timeless design.

This past winter, I spent several weeks in New Zealand. Looking back, I believe that's where the true beginning of the True Nature Edition lies. Not because I intended to create a new pair of glasses, but because I started paying even closer attention to light itself. Anyone who spends time outdoors knows how dramatically a landscape changes throughout the day. Colors become warmer or cooler. Edges soften or sharpen. Sand, rocks, and plants don't follow fixed color palettes, yet everything feels perfectly balanced. Nothing demands attention, and that's exactly where an extraordinary sense of calm comes from.

Designer Note

"At some point in New Zealand, I think I spent more time watching the light than the landscape itself."

At that point, the FLITE.Rim already existed. Technically, it was exactly the eyewear I had always wanted to create: incredibly lightweight, exceptionally precise, and uncompromising in vision. Yet one question stayed with me.

How do you translate this feeling of naturalness, calm, and lightness into design? How do you create sports eyewear with the same technical precision, while giving it a character that feels equally at home beyond sport?

That's how the True Nature Edition came to life.Not through new technology, but through a new perspective. A quieter  design language inspired by nature and by the realization that truly good design doesn't need to be loud. It can be understated. It can simply feel natural.

More than 25 years of product development, countless kilometers on running trails around the world, and encounters with people, cultures, and landscapes have taught me that real innovation rarely comes from adding more. More often, it appears when you keep refining until only what truly matters remains.

Designer Note

"To me, lightness isn't a material. It's the result of experience."

I develop products from my own experience for people who share the same expectations of vision, movement, and design that I have myself. That's why True Nature is far more than the name of an edition. It brings together so much of what has shaped me since the beginning of SIOLS: the perspective of a designer, the experience of a prescription eyewear wearer, the passion of a runner, and the curiosity of a traveler.

I want to create products that serve people, inspire confidence, and stay with them for many years. Products that feel so natural and intuitive that, eventually, they simply become part of everyday life. To me, true luxury doesn't come from having more. It comes from realizing that nothing is missing.

Designer Note

"The best pair of glasses is the one you eventually stop thinking about."

Beate Gabelt
CEO & Designer, SIOLS