Shane Baum – Leisure Society, California
15th February 2012 “Indeed – there are significant differences between designing eyewear for men and for women. To design women’s frames, you need to explore your most feminine side. You need to think lighter, more delicate, and more “jewellery like”. As far as fashion goes, women take more chances and thus are more open minded. This is a great freedom in the mind of a designer. I think with the emergence of ‘heritage brands’, that tout a traditional Americana look, men are more apt to pay less attention to brands, and place a greater importance on quality and integrity. Of course, given the fact that I design a gold plated titanium, limited production, exclusively distributed product, I’m somewhat biased.
Men are as interested in vintage as women, if not more so. Many men truly enjoy the history of old brands – where it was made, how many were made…..It’s the same reason we collect baseball cards as kids and later as adults, vintage cars. Men appreciate the craftsmanship employed in making objects of great quality. Not that women don’t – it’s just men are more apt to ‘geek out’ on such stuff. Men are really not daring with colour, unless you call blond tortoise daring. Women are still much more open to bolder colour pallets. My own personal favourites in men’s fashion are Robert Geller, Shipley and Halmos, Billy Reid and Thom Browne”. www.leisure-society.com JG
Photo of Shane Baum: Gilles Stüssi