Shelf Sessions: Ace & Tate’s Mark de Lange

Mark de Lange shows us the hallway of his new home in the East of Amsterdam. Together with his wife Eva, he has just settled in a renovated place with a beautiful backyard. Shortly after a warm welcome, Mark immediately puts matters into his own hands by instructing our photographer: “These lines are pretty cool, maybe you could capture that,” he says. “Sorry, I probably shouldn’t interfere too much. It’s up to you.”

Check out some of Mark’s favorite books

It’s an omen for where our conversation is going this cold Friday morning. It seems like he is a bit of a control freak, but Mark is happy to admit it: “I am more removed from every single detail of the day-to-day operations of Ace & Tate, which allows me to work on the long-term, bigger picture,” he says. “And that’s good! We have great people at Ace & Tate, who are far more experienced in their respective fields than I am. They are responsible for the operations of the company on a daily basis. My role is more to oversee things and steer the company in the right direction for the future. Early on, I’ve learned that I’m actually not a good manager; I lack patience and I’m too nitpicky. Earlier this week I walked past one of our stores and saw that something wasn’t presented the way it should’ve been. That still bothers me. Luckily, I have someone who coaches me in these things, and of course Eva always helps me to put things in perspective.”

Talking about perspective; in only six years, Ace & Tate grew out to be one of the biggest brands coming out of Amsterdam. Their glasses (and tote bags) became an omnipresent force in pretty much every major city in Europe, and grew out to be one of Amsterdam’s start-up success stories within no time. Mark co-founded the company, and is the CEO, although he doesn’t really believe in that title. “Recently, I’ve been able to focus more on the creative side,” he explains. “Glasses are essentially a medical product, so you need a clean and trustworthy appearance. That’s why our physical retail is still very important. I’m mostly involved in how we combine the necessary clinical and interesting design in our stores, but in general my role is to oversee everything that’s going on. We don’t have a creative director in the traditional, fashion house definition, and I don’t think we’ll ever have one. We’re not Gucci.”

With 51 stores (and counting), Ace & Tate is a rapidly growing success. In our latest book, Amsterdam Uncovered, Mark sat down with VanMoof’s Taco Carlier and WeTransfer’s Bas Beerens to talk about that success and the role Amsterdam played in it. At its head office in Amsterdam Oost, the company counts nearly 130 people, and if you include the stores, Ace & Tate has around 600 employees. That is an insane growth if you reckon that only four years ago, Mark was operating an office with just 35 people. Although it seems explosive, it’s a growth that Mark had seen coming from the start: “The plan was always to make it a company that could be an alternative to the big players in our industry,” he says. “When we just opened our first store, we were doing everything with twenty people from a very small office. Now we’re opening our 51st store in Europe, and we’ve just sold our millionth pair of glasses.” Answering the question how he experiences all this he remains calm and confident: “If you want to play in the big leagues, you need to operate at that scale as well. It was planned, kind of, but it’s still pretty fucking crazy of course.”

Next to running the business, Mark also just moved into his new house, and his wife Eva—who’s reading a book while we’re doing the interview—just started her pregnancy leave (upon publishing, Mark and Eva have become parents of a beautiful daughter). A new venture in Mark’s life, and it’s safe to say it’s at least just as exciting. When a new package filled with baby stuff is delivered at the door during our visit, Mark explains that it’s pretty much all he’s been thinking about lately: “You can’t imagine how much stuff you need!” To the question if he’s ready for it, he replies as one might expect from a control freak like him: “This is something you can never be fully prepared for. You simply can’t fully estimate what it’s going to be. But we have a beautiful new house, with plenty of space in a safe environment, so we’ve done everything we could to prepare for our baby girl.”

The house feels new and clean, which also may have something to do with Mark’s indefectible eye for details. In the middle of the living room there’s a giant custom-made bookcase that ties the room together like the Dude’s rug. It boasts a collection as divisive as you’d find in a bookstore: From classic literature to Harry Potter, and from photography and fashion books like Kate Moss and Fantastic Man to biographies of pretty much every rockstar that has ever lived.

It’s surprising, to say the least, to find out that Mark—the CEO of a company like Ace & Tate, with his somewhat posh accent—is actually a metalhead. When entering the house, we were welcomed with smooth soul music coming from the speakers. If it was up to Mark, we would hear Guns ‘N Roses, Iron Maiden and Metallica. “I used to be a closet hard rock fan, but now I’m proud to out myself as a die hard metalhead,” Mark says jokingly. “People are always surprised when they find out. I guess I don’t look the part. In all honesty I do listen to many different kinds of music, but hard rock has been the biggest thing in my life ever since I was a child. I visited my first Guns ‘N Roses concert when I was ten years old. I must have been to at least six Metallica concerts. I used to be such a groupie.”

With big fashion companies like H&M appropriating the band T-shirt, it’s easy to confuse a die hard fan for an influenced teenager. Mark proves he’s the real deal by diving into his closet and pulling out around thirty different band T-shirts. “These are either bought at concerts, or on websites like Marktplaats and Ebay,” he says while going through a big pile of merchandise. “I actually have a vintage Megadeth T-shirt coming in today. Maybe it’ll be here before you guys leave. It’s so fucking ugly, but I love it.”

Next to his vast collection of books about rock history’s greats, his book collection goes everywhere. “We just took them randomly out of the boxes, so it’s not really well organized right now,” he says, adding another sign towards his orderliness. “The Beastie Boys book is one of my favorites. It goes from stories and anecdotes to recipes, photos, and interviews—it’s so comprehensive and funny, you guys should have that!”

The Beastie Boys book is one of the books Mark didn’t get from MENDO. But when drooling on his impressive bookcase it’s easy to find several titles that were bought in the Berenstraat. From books about our favorite city like Shortlist and our classic Amsterdam book, to several of the Monocle guide books. Mark is a big fan of Tyler Brule’s brand: “What Monocle does is very durable. They have a very clear style that seems timeless to me.”

Mark also has a lot of fashion books. With streetwear inspiration from Fragment and Highsnobiety, and one of his favorites in A.P.C. Transmission. “Jean Touitou is a very inspiring guy,” he explains. “The way A.P.C. combines classic French fashion with a contemporary twist and a rock ‘n roll edge is very appealing to me, of course. They have a very strong line, but it’s never boring. That’s what building a cool brand is all about.”

That’s also what Ace & Tate has been doing. Through inspiring stories, eye-catching editorials, and equally eye-catching frames (for a very fair price), Ace & Tate has been conquering the streets and Instagram-feeds of Europe. Collaborations with brands like Appelsap and CMMN SWDN have only empowered its brand. While it’s first collaboration was (in our honest opinion) the most special one. “Our first collaboration was with MENDO,” Mark rememorates. “In a way, it was also one of our most successful. It sold out immediately. MENDO also designed our first logo, which is a different version of the logo you see now.”

So maybe it’s safe to say that MENDO laid the foundation for one of the most pervasive logos in Amsterdam. Try walking through Amsterdam for an hour without seeing one of their frames or tote bags passing by; it’s impossible. Mark instantly knows the frame I’m wearing on my nose. “That’s Alfred,” he says with a big smile. “Another peeve of mine is that I always immediately recognize the Ace & Tate glasses wherever I am. Same goes for the tote bags. Yesterday I was at a theater show, and I couldn’t help but look around to see who’s wearing what. People will probably think I’m weird, because I’m staring at them. But most of the times, that’s just because I’m staring at their glasses.”

Ace & Tate aims to be the glasses brand for Generation Y and Z, as a logical alternative to fashion house frames for people who are under 45 years old. Those fashion houses usually sell their glasses because of their exclusive branding, while Ace & Tate doesn’t have any outside branding on their glasses at all. “That has been an ongoing discussion we’ve been having for six years,” Mark admits. “I personally think that Ace & Tate is not the type of brand to use excessive branding. If we were to do that, it might be a subtle Ampersand on the side. It goes completely against the current in fashion, but I prefer understated pieces. I just don’t like logos. Unless it’s a band T-shirt, haha.”

Besides opening stores and selling glasses, Ace & Tate is currently working hard on changing the industry by investing in more environmentally friendly materials and products, as well as ways to do eye tests digitally at home. “Those things are very important to all the people who work at Ace & Tate,” Mark explains. “The penny dropped when I read Yvon Chouinard’s Let my People Go Surfing. We, as brands, have a responsibility to ignite change. Or at least contribute to a better world.” Ace & Tate does that vigorously. Mark tells me that they’re working towards being completely Carbon neutral, while all of their stores in the Netherlands are working on green energy. “We’re also working on biodegradable acetate for our frames,” he continues. “Our office lunch is vegetarian, and we took out all the paper and metals out of our cases. Our latest cases are made from water based PU, and they’re metal free. Oh, and—when possible—we travel by train.”

Here and there you’ll find a pair of glasses laying around the living room. According to his own estimates, he probably owns around seventy different pairs. “Most of them are production samples,” he explains. “It helps me to find out whether stuff works. Does it feel right? Does it look right? Do the glasses match with the frame? When you’re dependent on glasses to actually see the world, it’s important that it works.”

When he opens one of his drawers, a big pile of glasses suddenly see the daylight. It seems like we finally found one spot in his house that isn’t organized. He pulls out one of his personal favorite frames, the Harry, which he has in all kinds of colors. He’s also a big fan of the Hudson, which was named after his Guns ‘N Roses hero guitarist Slash (whose real name is Saul Hudson).

As for his book collection, his latest addition was the Wonderwall Case Studies. “I’m mostly interested in brands,” Mark says. “I love the design of this book, and it’s also interesting for us workwise to get inspiration from. I have books from Purienne or Helmut Newton, but these [brand books] are the ones I still open regularly to see how others have done it.”

These books may have helped Mark in his work, but perhaps Ace & Tate could be able to show others how they do it through a book of their own. It has gone through Mark’s mind several times, and to celebrate the opening of their 50th store they already made a small booklet highlighting all of them. In regards to how he envisioned this Ace & Tate book he’s very clear. He looks me straight in the eye and says: “Everything.” He continues: “Although Ace & Tate is still quite young, we’ve done so much already. So much content, different people, different designs. We’re always working on the next thing. It would be nice to look back at all of those things we’ve done in the past, even if it were only for ourselves.”

Upon taking one final look at Mark’s bookcase it seems clear that he knows how to find MENDO, and after our previous joint project there is hardly any doubt that a next collaboration will also be a success. For now, his focus is on taking the baby stuff out of the box, and as we finish our drinks with the accompanying voice of Amy Winehouse coming from the speakers, we slowly start to put our jackets back on. The doorbell rings just before we open the door. “That must be my T-shirt,” Mark says. “Right on time.”

Check out some of Mark’s favorite books