Wednesday 30 November 2011

Sonic sunglasses from GILES for Cutler and Gross


These are Sonic by GILES for Cutler and Gross, the third time the British designer Giles Deacon has collaborated with C&G and they're a bit bloody good aren't they?

They come in Flesh with smoky lenses, "Grubby White" with brown lenses (above) , Red with bright red lenses and Black with electric blue lenses, as shown below. They're £350 and become available in December.

Meanwhile, Cutler and Gross this week launches its first "shop-in-shop" at the brilliant Eyeworks boutique in Kensington, London. More than 70 frames will be available from Cutler and Gross's spring/summer 2012 collection and vintage archive.

Eyeworks owner Brenda Mckernan says the London customer is looking for "something different to the standard commercial brands that everyone is so bored of seeing on every optician’s shelves". Well said Brenda - that's what we like!

Monday 28 November 2011

When the specs seem to shine like you've had too much wine, that's A-Morir

A-Morir Bootsy sunglasses


A-Morir Lizzy sunglassesA-Morir Bootsy Supreme sunglassesA-Morir, the eyewear collection by Kerin Rose, is bigger and better than when we first featured them in 2009. A breath of fresh air in a world of copycat collections and me-too mediocrity. 8)

Top to bot: Bootsy, Lizzy, Supreme and Sylvia Brown.

A-Morir Sylvia Brown sunglasses

Friday 25 November 2011

Jimmy Choo 2012 sunglasses: Belle in black

Jimmy Choo 2012 sunglasses: Belle

Jimmy Choo 2012 sunglasses: Belle

These are Jimmy Choo Belle sunglasses in black for 2011/2012. Black Friday means there are plenty of good offers on sunnies, such as at Solstice, where all sale item can get an extra 30% off by using promo code TAKE30.  Sale ends November 28, 2011. But I doubt these Jimmy Choos will be in the sale as they're brand spanking new!

Tuesday 22 November 2011

Retrosun: free prescriptions for vintage frames for next 48 hours!



Every now and then we spot a good offer that we have to share with the (cool-)glasses-buying public...

Retrosun is offering free prescriptions in its vintage sunglasses for the next 48 hours. Brands include Hugo Boss, Christian Dior, Carrera, Cazal and Gucci. Quick!..

Sunday 20 November 2011

Vintage Oakley Frogskins from Lunettes London


Lunettes London specialises in genuine, vintage frames from yesteryear and we were particularly taken by these Frogskins by Oakley. Great lenses too! 8)


Saturday 19 November 2011

Beyond the hinge: ProDesign Denmark's Axiom collection




Eye Wear Glasses often gets a bit carried away when presented with new, innovative hinges and ProDesign Denmark's Axiom design is no different. In fact you could argue that this hinge is barely a hinge at all, it's so simple. EWG has had a good play with it and find the open-close action strangely addictive!! And as can be seen from this video, the Axiom collection comes in numerous shapes and colours...
   

Music added by EWG: Ain't What You Do by DoDo Green

Saturday 12 November 2011

Eyewear: A Visual History - another optical opus reviewed

A model with the latest styles of spectacles, 1956. Copyright: Getty Images


Five hundred years of spectacles, from classic to outrageous. Courtesy TASCHEN
You wait all year for an eyewear book and then two come along at once. New York eyewear designer Moss Lipow's Eyewear: A Visual History, at 360 pages, is a bigger book than Cult Eyewear, reviewed here last month. It's a very different hardback, but equally compelling.

Eyewear is for flicking through. Each page is marvellously illustrated with carefully photographed life-size frames, most of which come from Lipow's own collection. As well as this array of stills, he has sourced amazing pictures such as this one above (1956) from old magazines, catalogues, advertising and films.

Lipow begins in the first chapter - pre-1900 - at the very beginnings of glasses, charting the history of the early optical devices. There are lorgnettes, optical fans, scissor spectacles, pince-nez and monocles, but it's the second chapter on 1900-1945 in which you really begin to appreciate the extent of his glasses collection.

I was intrigued by the story linking sunglasses and billiard balls, and the detail provided around some early cat's eye designs and driving glasses is enlightening. Eyewear is providing Eye Wear Glasses with some much need early eyewear education! Brands to be found in this chapter include Shuron, American Optical, Bachman Bros and Montgomery Ward and some Bausch & Lomb aviators from the 1940s. There's even a pair of 1920s protective glasses from the Soviet Union.

The middle section covers the post-war sunglass boom, between 1945 and 1960. Find out here how the demise of ornamental hair combs is linked to eyewear manufacture. And it's from here on in that the book becomes an absolute joy with page after glorious page of amazing eyewear designs. The chapter on the 1960s is superb, with a focus on op-art, featuring contributions from Silhouette, Pierre Cardin, Spec-Trim, Renauld, Ray-Ban, Paulette Guinet, Oliver Goldsmith, Pierre Marly, Oleg Cassini (below) and American Optical (next down).

Continues below...


Five hundred years of spectacles, from classic to outrageous. Courtesy TASCHEN

Above: Shutter sunglasses by Alain Mikli. Above those: are Italian metal sunglasses from Maga Design. And the big blue ones above those are Futura sunglasses from Silhouette. These final three feature in the final chapter, The Age of the Licensed Brand which features yet more amazing styles from Christian Dior, Bollé, Cazal, Moschino by Persol, and some astonishing Jean-Paul Gualtier sunglasses by Murai of Japan.

I particularly like the inclusion of Taiwan or Korea-made sunglasses alongside the Western brands, and Lipow describes the ramifications of Asian-made eyewear on the West's eyewear industries; he even features a Taiwanese "knockoff" of Alain Mikli's famous 'Picasso' 030 frame, directly opposite the genuine spectacle.

Moss Lipow's book is a eyewear design treasure trove, providing exactly the visual history its title promises. It's eyewear eye-candy, at times you don't know where to look! His writing is entertaining and informative and includes numerous little-known gems. But this book is first and foremost about the images, approximately 1,200 of them and every one is presented at a scale such that you can spot wonderful detail. Well worth investing in!

Hover over images for photo credits.

Eyewear - A Visual History - German, English and French edition. Copyright: TASCHEN. The sunglasses featured are Sunspec, Sol-Amor, France, late 1950s

Eyewear: A Visual History by Moss Lipow.
Published by Taschen. UK £34.99, US $59.99, €39.99. 360pp. English/German/French.
ISBN 978-3-8365-2565-7

Also available in Italian/Portuguese/Spanish.
€39.99. ISBN 978-3-8365-2780-4

Buy your copy here:
UK | USA | Deutschland 
España | France | Italia

Monday 7 November 2011

Sons + Daughters Eyewear: so slick you'll wish they were bigger

Sons + Daughters Eyewear: so slick you'll wish they were bigger

Sons + Daughters Eyewear: so slick you'll wish they were bigger

Sons + Daughters Eyewear: so slick you'll wish they were bigger
Sons + Daughters Lenny sunglasses

Kids' eyewear is rarely top-quality. It's kind of assumed children's sunglasses will get sat on or lost, so why invest? 

But EWG thinks more frames probably fall apart because they're cheap and poorly made.

So we're interested to hear about Canadian brand Sons + Daughters that says its glasses are "so slick that parents will be wishing they came in big head sizes".

Certainly looks good: we particularly like Lenny in orange... a bit bigger please!

Sons + Daughters Lenny sunglasses