Smack dab at the epicentre of Toronto's poshest fashion district, Josephson Opticians' flagship store attracts flocks of mostly wealthy and often famous customers from around the world.

Its elegant appearance and luxurious product lines couldn't possibly be more up to the minute. Yet Josephson's principles and modus operandi actually make it a throwback to the genteel retail era depicted in a cherished black-and-white photo that hangs just inside its door near the corner of Bloor and Bay streets.

In it, smiling from the front window of his first shop, which he and wife Merryl opened at Bloor and Spadina in 1935, is optometrist David Josephson. Seventy years later and about 20 years after his death, the company boasts seven citywide stores and multimillion-dollar annual revenue.

It's rare for any family retail business to survive, let alone prosper, for that long, says Joel Baum, a professor in the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

Brennan O'Connor, Business Edge
Dr. Joshua Josephson, chairman of Josephson Opticians, joined the family business after 'provincial bureaucracy ran amok' in the health-care industry.

To do so "in such a competitive sector (as eyewear), while corporatization and chaining took place all around it, Josephson's chose a niche that has kept it at the forefront of fashion and technology, which is not the case with companies that cater to the mass market."

But whatever price point an eyewear retailer focuses on these days, it's a sizzling industry, especially because of the increasing optical needs of society's most populous demographic, the Baby Boomers. Serving them, as well as other North American consumer segments, added up to more than $16.8 billion US in sales last year, according to industry watchers Jolson Optical Group Research.

Dr. Joshua Josephson, now chairman of Josephson Opticians as well as an in-demand optometric scientist, attributes his company's impressive evolution and longevity as much to the customer-centric ideals of his parents as to their business acumen and sense of style. In fact, he says, it was watching his parents operate with "such a high degree of integrity and devotion to helping people" that inspired him to choose a career in eye care in the first place.

"It just struck me what a magical thing it was to be able to help people see better and feel better about their appearance," he says, adding that today, what's most important to him and his staff of 27 licensed opticians is "to feel fulfilled as professionals in the most meaningful way possible. And I don't believe there's any better example to follow than that of my father and mother."

While Josephson was growing up, he remembers his parents becoming pioneers in more ways than one. "They both had sophisticated taste and a real eye for style and what would best flatter a person's face. At a time when (eyeglass choices) were basic black, basic tortoiseshell, round or oval frames and not much else, they would go to Europe to find more interesting designs and bring them back.

"My father had a great knack for choosing the right product for the right person and he was among the first fitters of hard contact lenses in Canada. My mother basically handled the business end. And people came in droves from all over because there just weren't many places anywhere at that time that carried such innovative products."

Despite Josephson's admiration for his parents, it would be decades before he actually joined the family business. Instead, he trained as an optometrist and then became involved in the development of the first generation of soft contact lenses.

While devoting a great deal of time to research in the fields of bifocal contact lenses, ocular photography and studies of dry eyes, as well as to international speaking engagements and consulting for prestigious optical authorities, he opened what quickly became a renowned optometry practice in downtown Toronto.

"Wednesday nights were just wild," he recalls. "We'd fit people who flew in from everywhere. We had American artists from New York and Los Angeles, movie stars and even (bluebloods) from South America."

Among Josephson's happiest local customers was prominent hairstylist Robert Gage, who says he has always referred a lot of his celebrity clients to Josephson's.

"Josh and I first met many years ago when he saved me from some dreadful contact lenses that were totally wrong. But then he helped me choose the bold, round eyeglasses that are now my trademark. We both believe that glasses should have some glamour to them and not just look like a medical apparatus on your face," Gage says.

With such a busy and rewarding professional life of his own, Josephson says he gave no thought to joining Josephson Opticians, which by then had expanded from one to four stores dotted around Toronto. But by 1991, his attitude had done a 180 thanks to what he still regards as bureaucracy run amok when Queen's Park first slapped a limit on the fees doctors could charge and later outlawed direct patient billing altogether.

Josephson says the effects on his practice were devastating. Prior to the ruling, he not only spent as much time as necessary with what he considered a reasonable number of patients each day, but he also used much of the resulting revenue to fund advanced research into complex vision problems.

"Before then, I could afford to buy equipment that even hospitals didn't have. For example, I had the first device in the country to measure the thickness of the cornea," he says.

Having sufficient funds for such research was now a thing of the past. And Josephson's office became log-jammed with paperwork, lagging government payments and, to make up for the economic shortfall, the booking of more patients than he considered practical.

One day, after spending many hours trying to help a patient whose vision was severely impaired by corneal disease, he says "something snapped inside me."

He had succeeded without resorting to recommending the surgery other doctors had told the patient was his only option - for which he was allowed to charge $18.70.

So Josephson marched out to his reception desk with a black felt pen, picked up the appointments book, flipped to two months ahead and crossed out every future appointment. "I just said: 'That's it, I quit.' " After taking six months off to decide on his future direction, he joined Josephson Opticians, first opening his own store at York Mills Road and Bayview Avenue and later taking the reins of the entire operation as chairman.

The chain now numbers seven stores and, according to Craig Saunders, editor of the industry magazine Optical Prism, "is duking it out extremely well against very stiff competition."

One of Josephson's "key differentiators," he adds, "is great service. You walk in, you're taken care of by extremely well-trained people who really seem to enjoy what they do and have the fashion sense to find eyewear that really works for every customer."

In the time not spent on his business, Josephson continues consulting work, helping to develop public policies on the wearing of contact lenses in industrial and aquatic environments. For the past 15 years, he has served as chairman of the ophthalmic devices section of the Standards Council of Canada and represented Canada internationally in the development of standards pertaining to contact lenses.

In what he describes as his "other lives," Josephson also is owner of the popular Cookbook Store in Yorkville and a director of a company called No N.O. Inc., which is developing an innovative, non-nitric-oxide drug for the treatment of strokes.

But whenever he's at his flagship store, he says he still likes to gaze at his father's photograph and reflect on the fact that 70 years after it was snapped, "we're still looking after people with the same degree of integrity that he had."

(Terry Poulton can be reached at poulton@businessedge.ca)