MYKITA Glasses – Products Made in Berlin

Mykita has made its glasses by hand in Berlin since 2003 and now works in a listed brick building on the Spree in Kreuzberg. What sets the brand apart is a patented hinge that needs neither screws nor soldered joints. The name comes from the Kita, the German word for a day nursery, because the rooms of one held the very first workshop of the brand.

A brick building on the Spree in Kreuzberg

Mykita works at Koepenicker Strasse 20 in Kreuzberg, in a red brick building right on the Spree that served as a dye works and factory from the middle of the nineteenth century and stands under monument protection. The house was rebuilt by Gruentuch Ernst Architekten and taken over in 2024; before that the brand spent ten years in the Pelikanhaus on Ritterstrasse and earlier still on Brunnenstrasse in Mitte. Around three thousand eight hundred square metres are available, two hundred and forty people from thirty-five nations work here, and more than a hundred and ten of them build the frames by hand. Design, prototyping and production therefore sit under one roof. Anyone wanting to try the glasses on does not come here but goes to one of the two Berlin shops, on Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse in Mitte or on Budapester Strasse by the zoo, where eye tests and lenses are part of the service. The frames are made a few kilometres from the shops, which in this trade is far from usual.

A hinge without screws and six collections

Mykita was founded in 2003 by Harald Gottschling, Daniel Haffmans, Philipp Haffmans and Moritz Krueger, who has led the company as managing director and creative director since 2015. The name is an abbreviation with a Berlin background, because the first workshop sat in a former day nursery. What made the brand technically known arrived a year after the founding and is patented to this day. On the metal frames the temples are clipped in, entirely without screws and without soldering, which makes the glasses lighter and more durable at once. Out of that idea six collections have grown: number one in stainless steel, number two in acetate, the very light Lite line, the Decades range modelled on styles of the twentieth century, the Luxe line in natural materials and Mylon in laser-sintered polyamide, where the leftover powder is used again. Alongside them came work with Leica, Moncler and Rimowa as well as a long row of design prizes.