Expensive Glasses LESLEY STAHL: Do you have any idea how many people in the world are wearing your glasses right now? ANDREA GUERRA: At least half a billion are wearing our glasses now. LESLEY STAHL: Luxottica is the biggest eyewear company on Earth. Luxottica started here as a small tool shop in Agordo, a dot of a town in the Italian Alps. When frames were still made of mountain goat horns. This was the factory in 1961. This is what it looks like today. Last year, Luxottica made some 65 million pairs of sunglasses and optical frames. But they're very expensive. They can be very expensive. ANDREA GUERRA: They can. But this is one of the very few objects that are hundred percent functional, hundred percent aesthetical, and they need to fit your face for 15 hours a day, not easy. And there is a lot of work behind them. LESLEY STAHL: Luxottica wouldn't tell us their markup, but glasses like these can sell for up to 20 times what they cost to make. And all the glasses are designed by Luxottica. If people begin to know that Chanel glasses were designed by Luxottica, would it change the way they think about Chanel glasses? ANDREA GUERRA: You know, that would be totally wrong. That would be crazy. LESLEY STAHL: But why isn't the Luxottica name a brand name? Are you in any way hiding it? ANDREA GUERRA: Hiding it? LESLEY STAHL: Yeah. ANDREA GUERRA: Not at all. We are listed. LESLEY STAHL: Listed on the New York Stock Exchange where Luxottica shares are soaring. There company raked in $8 billion last year, but their best seller wasn't a fancy fashion house label. It was a brand they outright own, Ray-Ban. When you bought it, you could buy them for, I don't even know how little money. ANDREA GUERRA: Twenty nine dollars. LESLEY STAHL: Twenty nine dollars at the drugstore, at a gas station. And you took them off the market. ANDREA GUERRA: We refurbished everything. LESLEY STAHL: And made them upscale. Today, those $29 pairs can cost 150 and more. And Ray-Ban is the top selling sunglass brand in the world. When Americans go to buy these glasses, I'll bet 99 percent think they're buying an American brand. ANDREA GUERRA: It is an American brand. What's wrong with it? I mean, it's an American brand owned by Italians. I think the world is, the world is this. LESLEY STAHL: It is the world and we don't realize it. That's the thing. Before I started working on this story, I never heard the name Luxottica. ANDREA GUERRA: Yeah. LESLEY STAHL: Which is all the more surprising since Luxottica not only bought Ray-Ban, they also bought LensCrafters, the largest eyewear retail chain in North America. You may think, well, there's choice in the mall for other glasses. But Luxottica doesn't only own the top eyewear chain in the country. It owns another large chain, Pearle Vision. And Oliver Peoples. And several boutique chains. And it runs Target Optical. And Sears Optical. And we're not done. Luxottica also owns Sunglass Hut, the largest sunglass chain in the world. So is there a free market in eyewear? BRAD AARONS: No, I don't think there really is. I think one company has excessive dominance of the market. LESLEY STAHL: Smartmoney.com columnist, Brett Arends, says the appearance of variety is an optical illusion. BRAD AARONS: Reality is, it's like, you know, it's like pro-wrestling competition. It's actually fake competition. LESLEY STAHL: So Luxottica can set the prices as high as it wants. BRAD AARONS: Luxottica's dominance, it's what's called a price maker, which means that essentially it can set prices and other people will follow in its make. LESLEY STAHL: Which he says is why glasses, in general, cost so much. Even at your local opticians.