MCM Eyewear: A German Luxury Brand's Rise, Fall, and Korean-Led Revival

MCM's story is one of fashion's more dramatic boom-and-bust tales — a German luxury brand that reached extraordinary heights in the 1980s and early '90s, collapsed almost entirely by the mid-1990s, and was rebuilt from the ground up by a new owner an ocean away. Its eyewear collection is a relatively recent chapter in that comeback.

A dream born in Munich's Golden Age: 1976

MCM was founded in Munich in 1976 by Michael Cromer, alongside his wife Mara, with the initials standing for "Michael Cromer München." Before founding the company, Cromer had studied economics and spent time working as a model and actor — experience that connected him to a network of influential people in fashion and entertainment who would later help promote his brand. The couple's ambition was straightforward: to build a luxury luggage and handbag label in the spirit of Louis Vuitton, anchored by a distinctive monogram design of its own.

MCM's signature Cognac Visetos material — the brand's logo-printed canvas — quickly became a status symbol, and the brand's recognizable brass plate insignia, still found on heritage collection bags today, gave each piece a numbered mark of authenticity. By the early 1990s, MCM had grown explosively: at its 1993 peak, the brand operated 250 branches worldwide and recorded sales of $250 million, with celebrities including David Bowie, Diana Ross, and Mick Jagger photographed carrying the brand's bags as early as the 1970s.

A dramatic collapse

MCM's downfall was as fast as its rise. In 1995, German tax authorities launched an investigation into Michael Cromer for alleged tax evasion, and the resulting loss of confidence among banks and investors proved catastrophic. Cromer was unable to repay credits reportedly exceeding 11 million Swiss francs, and control of the company's trademark rights passed to the banks as collateral. The MCM trademark was eventually sold for roughly one million German marks — a fraction of the brand's former value. Michael Cromer pursued legal action to recover the company but was unsuccessful, and he died from organ failure in 2009, having spent his final months completing a memoir about the company's rise and fall.

A Korean-led revival: 2005

In 2005, South Korean businesswoman Kim Sungjoo, of the Daesung Group family, purchased the MCM trademark rights and set about rebuilding the brand from scratch. The company was rebranded as Modern Creation München, keeping the familiar MCM initials while distancing the label from its founder's name. Kim hired designer Michael Michalsky to help relaunch the brand in 2006 with a new flagship store in Berlin, and MCM went on to reopen stores across New York, Toronto, Paris, London, Singapore, Tokyo, and China. In 2011, the brand opened its largest store yet, in Hong Kong's Entertainment Building — a clear signal of the brand's growing strength in Asian markets, which today account for roughly 70% of MCM's total sales.

A modern creative rebuild

MCM continued expanding its creative ambitions through the 2010s. The company established a Milan design studio in 2017 and presented its first full ready-to-wear collection at Pitti Uomo in 2018, the same year Dirk Schönberger joined from Adidas as global creative officer, eventually building out design teams across Berlin, Seoul, and Milan. Schönberger departed in 2023, and MCM has since operated under a dual creative leadership structure: Tina Lutz as Global Creative Lead, based in Milan, and Katie Chung as Creative Director, based in Seoul — a structure that reflects MCM's genuinely global, dual-hemisphere identity.

Eyewear enters the collection

MCM's eyewear line has been produced through exclusive licensing agreements, first with Marchon Eyewear from 2015 to 2023, and with Marcolin since 2023. The eyewear collections lean into MCM's retro travel-and-luggage heritage, mixing classic silhouettes — aviators, cat-eyes, clubmasters, and wayfarers — with contemporary, exaggerated proportions and bold color combinations. Designs frequently incorporate the brand's iconic Visetos monogram pattern and metal "locker" hardware details that directly echo the closures found on MCM's signature handbags, tying the eyewear collection visually back to the brand's original travel-goods identity.

A design identity rooted in streetwear and travel

MCM eyewear is generally described as bold and unconventional, appealing to a younger, style-forward audience drawn to the brand's mix of German craftsmanship and modern streetwear sensibility. The brand's laurel-and-ribbon logo, a nod to Bavarian King Ludwig I's fondness for Neoclassicism, appears throughout the eyewear line alongside the brand's full MCM wordmark, typically in gold or silver on the temples. Collections continue to draw on MCM's roots in luxury travel accessories, translating that same retro-meets-modern aesthetic into sunglasses and optical frames worn by celebrities including Rihanna and Cristiano Ronaldo.