Shane Baum at Leisure Society Discusses Luxury
How do you define Luxury? “Luxury is the act of feeling good about something, and whether it’s an object, a time – there can be a variety of luxuries in life – and they are all based upon really feeling good about something”.
What elements are most important when designing Luxury eyewear? “With eyewear, there’s always states of economy involved with whether you can create something or not. When building luxury eyewear, you have an open palette to paint with more colours, more exotic materials, more intricate designs, more labour and everything else. So eyewear becomes luxuruious when your palette of ingredients to design with becomes greater.”
Where do you find inspiration? “At the end of the day, eyewear is simply a product, and products are influenced by a variety of capacities. Whether it’s an heirloom piece from a chalice at a castle in Scotland, or a beautiful chair with beautiful lines, there’s a certain aesthetic. There is wrong or right to it because the public will vote and look at something and say: ‘are these lines in the right place?’ The relation of those eyes to the human eye defines the most beautiful pieces of any luxury product. For me it’s all product design and architecture, so that can be as simple as beautiful heirloom pieces from Europe that are vases, candelabras, door handles, anything that is made from a pliable object and molded, is inspiration from my viewpoint.”
Do you have any special ‘luxuries’ you cannot live without? “Well, you could live without any of them, but life without luxuries isn’t really worth living, is it? (he says with a chuckle). You know, my children are a real luxury, and I could not live without them. Everything else I feel thankful to have. I think in general luxury comes down to both quality ingredients, but also a lot of hard work. When you look at the great artists and what it took for them to make paintings, sculptures, or masterpieces of their eras, these are not things that were done in fifteen minutes or copied from anyone else. This was true artisanal craftsmanship and a dedication to an art form and a craft – with a lot of heart, time, effort and talent. When you think about eyewear design, it’s people with the extra inspiration that push all of us forward, and take this from a medical device that you wear on your face, to an art form that can be cherished from generation to generation.” www.leisure-society.com JG