The French optician has lived in Switzerland since 1998. Alain Afflelou was born in Algeria in 1948. The son of bakers, he left to study in France in 1962. He received a diploma from the Paris School of Optometry and immediately opened an optometry shop in Bordeaux.
In 1978, the optician innovated with extremely low prices and invested all of his profits in advertising. Afflelou quickly became well-known and, with sales of over 100 pairs of glasses per day, he was able to open new subsidiaries.
The hundredth Alain Afflelou store was inaugurated in 1985. Three years later, the optician bought out the Leroy chain and set up a prestigious subsidiary on the Champs-Elysées. His success continued to grow with the sales of fashionable glasses at reasonable prices.
The Alain Afflelou company currently boasts 450 sales outlets in France and sells over 1.5 million pairs of glasses each year. Alain Afflelou sold off 70% of his company in 1997. He moved to Switzerland in 1998, settling in Geneva with a fortune of over 125 million Swiss francs.