The Elwood store has seen a dramatic makeover this year, to celebrate 20 years …
The brand new interior at the store in Elwood, Victoria (Australia), has been created by local designers and friends of the WINK team, Andy Kelly and Mitchell Zurek of Brud Studio. “WINK is 20 years in business this year and the current store fit was 10 years old so we saw it as a birthday gift,” the team told Eyestylist when we asked why they chose to refit this year. “We began the design conversation last year. We have been in the beautiful bayside suburb of Elwood in Melbourne for the entire 20 years. We are part of a wonderful community and the high street is a great combination of unique businesses.”
Inspired by Iris Apfel, the new interior features striking custom-made cabinets, including a bright red display unit presenting each piece as a treasured ‘objet’. Natural walnut sits alongside candy-coloured lacquer, travertine, glass and polished metal, creating a layered, lived-in environment that feels more like a home than a conventional optical practice. “The attention to detail reflects our approach to eyewear itself,” they say, “carefully curated, deeply considered and designed to create lasting connections with the people who visit us. WINK’s philosophy has always centred on combining exceptional eye care with a highly curated, design-led environment that fosters connection and individuality.” Above: the new WINK interior features custom-made fittings and unique furniture – the ‘pendant’ light is by local Melbourne artist, Cordon Salon
“I think you always love the feel and comfort of a place you have adapted to but changing that makes you change things too. It gives new direction…” Jo at WINK
Asked if the collections have changed since the new store opened, Eyestylist learnt that while new collections have not been added, there is a deeper presentation of some of the favourite brands. “We find that although there may be brand crossover with other stores no one chooses the same unique pieces that we do.” The store also stocks a new Australian-made signature WINK frame and their own chic in-house designed travel cases for storing multiple frames. Find out more at www.winkoptom.com.au
Read our first feature on WINK from September 2011: https://www.eyestylist.com/2011/09/wink-optometrists-melbourne-australia/
Photography provided by WINK Optometrists. All rights reserved. This feature was written by Clodagh Norton. AI was not used to write the feature.
Blackfin One for Autumn/Winter
All focus on precision titanium engineering, aesthetic sensitivity and chromatic experimentation
Attention to detail and a single-minded drive to achieve excellence are reflected in the new Blackfin One styles, such as Lanai (below) and Hamilton (above), frames which express the evolution of the collection and a sophisticated balance between material and design.
Trend-driven and distinctive, the aviator style Hamilton reinterprets the double bridge with a bi-level front milled from a single block of titanium. Colour combinations, such as the new satin light gold paired with black or dark brown, have been explored to emphasize the design, highlighting the interplay between surfaces and details while adding depth to the structure. Above: model Hamilton in the Blackfin One collection
For model Lanai, the generous, feminine shape is enhanced by an expertly hand-applied triple horizontal gradient front – a technique that has been mastered through years of colour application work. An expansion of Blackfin’s exploration of colour, it alters the perception of thickness and heightens the frame’s visual lightness – providing a very distinctive look for the wearer.
Blackfin One is a signature eyewear collection by the Italian company, using sheets of pure titanium with a “free and fluid” interpretation. The collection includes a wide range of shapes for different facial structures, ensuring an ideal fit that offers functionality and comfort. Colour is always innovative in the Blackfin One collection, with contrasting tones and nuanced juxtapositions. Polished and matt surfaces also feature to create unique aesthetic qualities. Find out more at www.blackfin.eu
Marc Le Bihan: Arcus Paris
The young jewellery eyewear brand is now available at Marc Le Bihan
Following a pop-up during Paris Fashion Week, the young independent brand ARCUS is now available at Marc Le Bihan’s exclusive boutique, “Le 39″—a space dedicated to emerging design talent.
Located at 39 Rue Étienne Marcel (Paris, 1st arrondissement), Marc Le Bihan’s concept store, “Le 39,” has established itself as a Parisian launchpad for up-and-coming designers. A key feature of this new arrangement is that customers can now visit the boutique to discover and try on the entire ARCUS collection in person.
With its “punk-chic” aesthetic, ARCUS has attracted the attention of several celebrities – Megan Fox, Sofiane Pamart, Bill Kaulitz, and the rapper SCH—who wore the “Lynx” model at the Stade de France and at Paris Fashion Week and the “Canis” model at an Audemars Piguet event. Above: ARCUS at Marc Le Bihan
About the brand / Founded in Paris by Amanda Cheng, Arcus Paris is an independent eyewear brand that wishes to redefine sunglasses as a form of art and self-expression. Handcrafted from deadstock materials and adorned with piercings, each pair reflects a balance of precision, individuality, and responsible craftsmanship. Embodying resilience, authenticity, and the beauty of imperfection, Arcus “celebrates the quiet power of personal identity and rebellion.” Find out more at www.arcusparis.com
A visit to …..Nina Mûr : the sustainable eyewear creators of Madrid
The eyewear label’s founder, Lorena Serrano has created a unique process for the production of frames in Finnish birch wood in her home city of Madrid – developed from the ground up – through boundless persistence, passion and genuine innovation. On a special tour arranged after Silmo, Eyestylist visited the workshop and studios set up from scratch by Lorena and her team who, through the last 8 years have developed and perfected a system for making creative made-to-order sustainable frames, now sold across the world…
Eyestylist visited Nina Mûr with Kayla Heersink, @opticali_style, Kyla Skinner of Specs by Kyla in Atascadero, California, and Ana Sedes, CEO of Pinkadillac, the business development and strategic consultancy for independent eyewear.
The tour of Nina Mûr began with delicious ‘chocolate and churros’ – a Spanish speciality, and an introduction to the process of making the frames at the label’s busy studios, where the team has grown significantly since our last visit here in 2024. Nina Mûr works with just two “outside” collaborators, one, an architectural practice who have developed the cutting technique for the birchwood pieces with Lorena, and a second workshop responsible for the varnishing stage. Everything else takes place on site in the two-storey studios in Bellas Vistas barrio of Madrid. Above: Lorena Serrano, founder
Lorena described how, in 2013, they spent much time on the creation of prototypes, often giving up evenings after her day job to test different types of wood for the particular properties needed for the frames. “We really did start from scratch, working with a lot of prototypes in different woods, different resins, different curvatures…it was a lot of development…”. Working initially out of an appartment in which the bathroom was ‘converted’ for production, orders grew exponentially and a new location was soon required.
Today, more than 10 team members are working at the studios in Madrid, and an area downstairs has been equipped in the last two years with a variety of specialised machines needed to facilitate different stages of the process including the creation of the curved plywood sheets, lens edging and finishing. An abrasive blasting cabinet is used for specialist surface preparation and finishing. According to Lorena, around 85% of each frame is made by hand – requiring around 80 steps…”When an order is placed, a very precise system is now operational for the production of the frames,” explained Lorena. This system has been developed through the years to make it as efficient and precise as possible. “It is really really complex,” she told us..” It’s the things that you cannot see that are so important to the process…”
Some of the most detailed work by hand takes place in the studio. Frames created in collaborations such as those with Okuda San Miguel have very very small parts – in this case tiny spikes – which must be added with real precision by hand. The frames in the clay collection featured tiny multicoloured clay pieces that were laid flat on to the wood surface by hand in an artistic formation, another task that could only be done by craftspeople and individuals with a real sensitivity to the creative process of the brand and the time needed to make a frame in this way.”
We visited the architect’s studio near the main studios of Nina Mûr where a small workshop is set up especially for this precision cutting work. The frames are cut using CNC (computer numerical control) and a specially developed software to “add three-dimensionality and guarantee precision, quality and comfort.” Cutting is organised according to the colours and whatever is a priority at the time.
Wearing a pair of Nina Mûr glasses means wearing something that has been uniquely made for you through a sustainable and exacting process – in Madrid. It is rare to see so many precise stages involved in the creation of individual pieces in any eyewear material, and this innovative sustainable approach to working with plywood, combining technical precision with a signature creative freedom and commitment to slow craftsmanship and hand-finishing, is a completely awe-inspiring achievement in the production of creative, sustainable eyewear design.
Find out more about the brand at www.ninamur.com
See the latest collaboration collection with Okuda San Miguel: www.eyestylist.com/2026/06/artist-collaboration-okuda-x-nina-mur/
Aleš Boem for Valérie Jurčíková
The Prague-based designer has worked with the fashion designer Valérie Jurčíková – the sports-inspired sunglass styles appeared during her runway shows at Mercedes-Benz Prague Fashion Week
Product designer Aleš Boem (boem.co) developed two sunglass collections for the Czech fashion designer Valérie Jurčíková, shown across two consecutive editions of Mercedes-Benz Prague Fashion Week — Gravity is Optional in April 2026, presented with Harper’s Bazaar, and a second collection that closed the SS27 runway programme on 7th September 2026. Both designs were 3D printed and developed in parallel with the garments rather than sourced as styling. Files then go straight to print, with hand finishing and lens fitting done in-house. The reason for printing is speed to finished object. From first sketch to a complete, wearable collection it took three months with the first line, three weeks with the second. That timeline can be achieved only with local manufacturing, the product designer says.
Jurčíkova’s April collection built on movement as a structural principle, referencing 90s aerobic culture and VHS home-workout tapes. Boem’s response was a sport cat-eye with an inverted profile — the volume of a 90s injection-moulded sports wrap, cut back and re-weighted so the visual centre of gravity sits low and forward. The split between the front and the temple is the functional detail: on the runway and off it, it catches hair falling forward. Lenses by Hoya; the commercial version runs Hoya Sensity photochromics, which clear indoors and darken outdoors. Image above: photography by Petr Šajgal – the show by the designer Valérie Jurčíková at Mercedes-Benz Prague Fashion Week
Credits: MBPFW Harper’s Bazaar CZ / Radka Čejdíková; Michel Negra; Petr Šajgal,; Sebastian Skore; Samuel Alex Petráš
Find out morę at https://www.boem.co/gravity-is-optional-for-valerie-jurcikova/ https://www.boem.co/rime-for-valerie-jurcikova/