Gai Gherardi, co-founder and creative director of l.a.Eyeworks—revolutionizing the eyewear industry and how it’s marketed, forging an influential design vernacular, and championing artists along the way—died Sunday, 16th March 2025, following a brief illness due to cholangiocarcinoma. She was 78.
Gherardi and Barbara McReynolds transformed eyewear when the high school friends-turned-licensed opticians opened an optical boutique on Melrose Avenue in 1979. Within the year, the eyewear fanatics launched a signature frame despite neither being formally trained in design. Brand and store, along with provocative slogans in the windows, soon became the heart of that storied street’s counter-cultural identity (punks, rockabillies, new wavers) thanks to an avid following of creatives and celebrities, and the founders’ deep support of artists.
Their approach to merchandising shifted the way consumers perceived eyewear: as a sculpture to be viewed from all angles within a retail space that evoked a (friendly) art gallery. Among the distinguishing details: rounded temple tips inspired by Gherardi’s affinity for Australian green tree frogs. Eschewing visible logos on their designs, the frog-toe temple tip is an insider signal among architects to troubadours alike.
“A face is like a work of art. It deserves a great frame.” This slogan defines the long-running black-and-white portrait ad campaign with photographer Greg Gorman. Pee-wee Herman (the late Paul Reubens), who trained a few doors away as a Groundling, featured in the first ad in 1982. Since, it’s been a roll call of iconoclasts: Grace Jones, John Waters, George Clinton, David Hockney, Rufus Wainright, Zandra Rhodes, Sir Ian McKellen, Jodie Foster, RuPaul and, most recently, Justin Vivian Bond. Elton John, who would send a tall Louis Vuitton trunk with individual drawers for all the frames he scooped up, also featured in the portrait series, now well past the 200 mark and counting. Grafiche Damiani published 171 of those images in a lavish book in 2011.
Gherardi was born on 8th July, 1946, in Glendale, CA, and raised an hour south in Huntington Beach. In the halls of that surf city’s eponymous high school and already conveying her maverick style in combat boots (to the prom, no less), Gherardi met McReynolds. The pair bonded instantly over folk music and eyewear.
Glasses were an obsession for both. So much so that a teen McReynolds with 20/20 vision faked an eye exam, and, after months of taxing her optometrist to find the perfect frames, scored a job in his office. When the doctor opened a branch near UC Irvine in 1965, McReynolds hooked up Gherardi with employment there.
When the friends opened the Melrose mothership on 9th September, 1979, Gherardi, in an interview, recalled that glasses “were still considered such a prosthesis. There was a lot of inhibition to wear them. But we were fearless about digging around to find great glasses.” Within months of opening, they submitted a sketch to a French eyewear maker: a classic acetate frame that nodded to those worn by lifeguards. They christened the unisex style “The Beat.”
Hundreds of influential original frame designs in expressive colorways have followed, manufactured in Europe and Asia according to the highest standards in the marketplace. In 1984, Eyeworks 3 launched, with partner Margo Willits and an office in France, to distribute the line worldwide.
Their distinct signature frames have been exhibited at the London Design Museum, the London Craft Council, the Los Angeles Craft Museum, the London College of Fashion, and the Chicago Athenaeum, among others. The limited-edition “Face It” collection, l.a.Eyeworks frames custom-embellished by artists, designers, and jewelers, has toured worldwide. Passionate about glasses as objects, Gherardi and McReynolds amassed an extensive collection of vintage fantasy frames, which has also toured museums internationally.
The brand’s credits in Hollywood and music are significant, including cult classics such as “Thelma and Louise” and “The Matrix.” But it’s the shopfront’s representation, albeit apocalyptic, in “Blade Runner” that continues to send fans emailing the company to this day.
www.laeyeworks.com