Press Release

Brussels, Belgium – April 23, 2015. Over the course of the next two days, 3D Printing’s leading thinkers and doers will call Brussels home as they gather to celebrate and discuss meaningful applications of 3D Printing at the Materialise World Conference. What better time for Hoet Design Studio to debut their 3D-printed Cabrio eyewear collection - produced in collaboration with Materialise NV (NASDAQ: MTLS)? The Cabrio collection, which consists of four sun and two optical styles, is created at the intersection of tradition in creating premium eyewear designs and advanced additive manufacturing technologies.

Hoet Design Studio strongly believes that eyeglasses should not only be a means to improve vision, but also a way to add to your personality - accentuating your own style so perfectly well that the result is impossible to ignore. To deliver on this, they are constantly challenged to design solutions that create a better equilibrium between aesthetics, functionality, technology, and ergonomics. It is when the Studio ran into design constraints that conventional technologies weren’t able to solve that they first collaborated with Materialise in 2013. This resulted in the Cabriolet Evo B, a pair of sunglasses that offered users a close and comfortable fit with a distinct, cutting-edge shape.

With this latest collaboration, both Hoet Design Studio and Materialise have pushed the limits of 3D printing technology, engineering, software, and manufacturing to create eyewear that resemble the perfect fusion of comfort, luxury, and quality. These glasses are made of superior materials and have been manufactured in the most advanced 3D Printing facility in Europe. Each pair sold is passed through an extensive control procedure to ensure that the highest quality standards are met and comes delivered with a Certificate of Authenticity.

“3D Printing has allowed us to achieve new designs which could not be realized by traditional production techniques” says Bieke Hoet, one of the Founders of Hoet Design Studio. “Our close collaboration with the engineering team at Materialise helped us in the physical realization of our ideas, putting the added values that 3D print has to offer in the daylight. These ‘made in Belgium’ CABRIO frames differentiate in many ways and offer aesthetical, functional and economic benefits to our customers. I find it especially exciting to be able to launch these glasses under the watchful eye of the world’s leading experts in meaningful 3D Printing applications, and proudly worn by the founder and CEO of Materialise, Wilfried Vancraen.”

The new Cabrio Collection will be available at the Hoet Eyewear Shops in Brussels and Bruges and at select independently owned optical shops worldwide. Click here to find the shop nearest you.

About Materialise
With its headquarters in Leuven, Belgium, and branches worldwide, Materialise is a provider of Additive Manufacturing (AM) software solutions and sophisticated 3D printing services in a wide variety of industries, including healthcare, automotive, aerospace, art and design and consumer products. Materialise has been playing an active role in the field of AM since 1990, through its involvement in AM for industrial and medical applications, by providing biomedical and clinical solutions such as medical image processing and surgical simulations and by developing unique solutions for its customers' prototyping, production, and medical needs. For additional information, please visit: www.materialise.com.

About Hoet
Bruges design studio Hoet’s is a family owned business founded in 1997. Its activities can be divided into different main categories. The development, distribution and production of their private label eyewear collections: Hoet Eyewear, Hoet Couture, Cabrio and the playful Hoet Eyecatchers, a collection of accessories intended as resources for reinforcing the dynamics of the optical shop. In addition to these, Hoet continues to accept design projects from companies, which the studio undertakes from design up to realization. Hoet design services.

A full integration of innovation and creation result in a never ending evolution of their eyewear designs, identifiable, remarkable and successful.

Patrick Hoet is the driving force behind the exclusive high-end Eyewear Hoet collection, Hoet Couture as well as remaining a designer for Theo. His daughter Bieke Hoet is responsible for the Cabrio frames as well as for the Hoet Eyecatchers.

Press contacts:

Vanessa Palsenbarg
Corporate Communications Specialist, Materialise
Phone: +32 16 39 66 37
Fax: +32 16 39 66 00
Email: press@materialise.com
Twitter: @belgiancanuck or @MaterialiseNV
Visit: www.materialise.com