Creative spirits

Annette Esto, Head of Design at FLEYE Copenhagen, warmly shares her perspectives with Eyestylist, and highlights her design concepts that transcend eyewear itself…and into the beautiful FLEYE Headquarters and her homes.

What qualities and character of Danish design history – with its simplicity and subtle details – have been the most important influence for your eyewear creations and home interiors? “Danish design is renowned for its clean lines, functionality and timeless approach. I like when classics come with a twist: a bright colour or an edgy detail, despite the clean simple lines of the Danish aesthetics. This is highly reflected in my home, where for example, I have a classic Scandinavian ‘smedker’ kitchen – I combined the traditional wood work with a bright, modern orange colour. Also, in FLEYE’s eyewear design we mix classic simplicity with a twist, where tradition meets the modern in innovative ways.” (Top image: Annette Esto with art by Inka Sigel)

Enriched cultural concepts ostensibly filter into your eyewear designs – like the Smorrebrod. What other perceptions filter into your home decor, as well as frames, such as travel or other artistic inspirations? “I love artworks – especially abstract art and abstract paintings that play with powerful colours, sharp contrasts, and different materials. My favourite painting is the one I have in our entry – an oil painting by Inka Sigel where different materials are sewn through the canvas. I have always been creative beyond what has become my profession, and personally I love to make flower creations and bouquets. For FLEYE AW18 eyewear, we have actually found inspiration in Flora Danica – an iconic collection of botanical illustrations from the 18th century. Taking a fresh look at the subject, we created our own floral portraits using flowers, trees, and shrubs often seen in Danish gardens. In order to set the right mood for an Autumn & Winter campaign, we decided to freeze flowers in ice blocks, leading to rich and dense colours, as well as the structures and shapes of our newest eyewear.”

You have a great interest in architecture. How has this inspired and cultivated interior creations in your home? “My home is a balance of traditional and modern furniture. In the dining room, I have a nice classic dining table where I have mixed Eames chairs in all kinds of different colours to give it a more personal and contemporary – yet timeless look. The same goes for the FLEYE office building, which is an old architect-designed manor house from the beginning of the 18th century. The building is protected and preserved in an old-fashioned style with high ceilings, but I have combined it with modern furniture in contemporary colours to give it a personal twist.”

Please tell us a brief history of the FLEYE offices and the intriguing building where frames are designed blending “urban impulses with classic simplicity.” “The FLEYE office is a historically beautiful manor house – Barfredshoj – built in 1800 by a German architect Peter Hetsch. Barfredshoj’s architecturally unique rooms and idyllic location form the setting for FLEYE’s creativity and inspiration. To me it is very important to be surrounded by nature and to have a wide and beautiful view – this is reflected in both the eyewear design, at the FLEYE office, and in my home.”

What designers most influence you in today’s constantly changing, dynamic and tech-savvy environment? “Issey Miyake – because he is timeless and classic. I can wear a ten-year-old piece from Issey Miyake at a fair and still receive compliments. His clothes are designed in amazing shapes and structures, and he mixes clean lines with patterns or fun colours. It is also very functional at fairs because the clothes don’t crease or wrinkle.”

In the future, what is a design project that you would most like to create and pursue? “I will continue to work within this nice path, which my team and I have worked so hard to get to, where we keep on surprising and challenging ourselves positively as well as our customers. The next project will be to transfer this beautiful flower concept into a Spring/Summer setting for our SS19 eyewear.” www.fleye.dk JG

Zack Tipton is the founder of VINYLIZE Eyewear – the only high-quality independent frame brand to create iconic sun and optical designs from old records – and CINEMATIQ, a collection that features old film footage inside the frames. He lives with his family in Budapest, Hungary.

Producing eyewear from vinyl has had its own peculiar challenges, but over the years, through perseverance and hard work, TIPTON Eyeworks has achieved much success since the first vinyl prototypes were created in 2000. Today the team and their artisans work out of an impressive established boutique and studio in central Budapest and boast an enviable and extraordinarily diverse list of VIPS wearing their designs – both in and outside the music + film industries. Their most recent limited editions were produced for Lana del Rey and Kendrick Lamar for the summer festival Sziget: https://www.eyestylist.com/2018/08/vinylize-for-lana-del-rey-kendrick-lamar/

Asked to reflect on his most exciting career moment so far, Zack refers to their constant efforts to make customers happy, which has driven him from the very beginning. He tells this story with pride and humour. “We had launched our Erotic Cinematiq collection which featured frames decorated with strip tease movies. It was selling like hot cakes and an order came in from London for a custom piece to feature details of male strippers. I wasn’t able to get suitable film for the delivery date so I improvised taking selfies with an old SLR camera and some reversal film…we used this footage for the Cinematiq design and that is the piece that Elton John is wearing.”

As well as the main collection Vinylize – produced from old records – the Cinematiq line today continues to attract a new following. “We re-launched this line this year with a 10-piece collection in three colours. Like the original collection, this one uses film stills in the temples, but we have managed to hugely improve the quality. The film strip is now laminated which protects it and the temples hold the film securely. We will soon be offering film choices.”

“Tipton has always had recycling at its heart”

And as with many of the most creative and innovative of the independent labels in this industry, there is always something new in production, or a special collaboration underway. One of the latest at Tipton, in production when Eyestylist was invited to Budapest in May, involves Nespresso. “Tipton has always had recycling at its heart. Vinylize transforms old vinyl records into eyewear. Cinematiq uses old film strips. Recycling is one of the brand aspects Tipton is known for and this is why Nespresso approached us to make frames out of their recycled aluminium capsules. We have designed and produced a three-piece collection – available in four colours. The material for the frames is produced from their used capsules. A trial run was launched in May and the response was astounding. We expect to see it released for purchase from January 2019.”

Similarly, Vinylize has a link up with AC/DC in a special edition collection that’s fresh, young and already sported by some huge stars in the music business, including Shawn Mendes. This collection, along with other one-off -new editions, will show to international buyers at SILMO Paris this month. It’s already available in specialist optical boutiques, in Europe and further afield. “The expanding Vinylize x AC/DC is coming to Paris. We will also release our colored vinyl collection – and a very special CINEMATIQ edition with footage from the “The Godfather” and some vintage erotic film. It’s an exciting time!”

Tipton Eyeworks is located at Iranyi utca 20, Budapest 1056, Hungary. The showroom and studio welcome visitors to see how the frames are created. VINYLIZE Eyewear is available worldwide at selected stores and online at www.vinylize.com CN

Award-winning fashion graduate Becky Hong studied Millinery Design at the Royal College of Art, and fell in love with eyewear, now one of her principle design projects and – she hopes – a possible career path. Eyestylist first met her at the 100% Optical fair in 2017, when she won the fair’s student competition with an exceptional design project entitled My Tribe – in that year students were asked to consider the wearer and their activities and lifestyle, by designing a frame for a specific person and specific use. Becky considered the frame’s capacity to work like make-up. https://www.eyestylist.com/2016/12/rca-x-100-optical/

This year, Eyestylist returned to London to meet Becky at her RCA finals show in June. All that Solidity, All that Fragility – RE-FORM looked at breaking – in eyewear and millinery – to ‘re-create’,  says the young designer.

“Through challenging the possibilities of the construction based on materiality, the technique of breaking, displacing and replacing both the lenses and the frame itself is reflective of the wearer’s impermanent real life experience and fragility of the wider society…”

The project offered exciting ideas in lens design concepts and frame functionality, extending not only through the refined reconstruction of the “broken” and “reconstructed” designs themselves but also in a strong, minimal concept in packaging. For more details about the young designer visit www.beckyhong.com CN

Eyeshaker is the innovative, practical and proficient way to clean spectacles. The Austrian based creators Martin and Andreas Lasnik (top image) tell Eyestylist the story behind their idea.

How did the creative concept evolve for Eyeshaker? “The vision was to clean your eyewear and do it in a cool and stylish way. You can place the Eyeshaker canister in your kitchen; office or bathroom, because you need it every day. Our target was to make the cleaning container look like a unique decoration or part of your furniture. And here it is…the stylish matt black canister with which you gently shake your glasses – frame and lenses – rendering a beautifully clean result.”

Were there challenges in developing this eyewear accessory? “Sure…it’s always a challenge to create a product. The important thing for us was that the consumer gets 100% clean glasses. Not just lenses, also the frame, nose pads, silicone parts, everything. So it was a lot of work to find the perfect cleaning solution and cloth to make that happen. And finally, we had to tell the optician that this is the perfect add-on sale to every pair of glasses, and the best cleaning solution for the customer.”

What customer feedback have you received about this unique product? “People love it. The way it works; the soft shaking; how it looks: everybody has fun now cleaning their eyewear. They love the feel of putting glasses on the nose after cleaning them. It’s almost like you’re wearing a new pair of glasses.”

How do you market Eyeshaker? “At the moment we sell them to almost every country in Europe. Step by step we are working on the distribution all around the globe. It’s important for us to work with the opticians in a good and fair way…so we are really taking care about how we market Eyeshaker.

Your recently launched the inventive, very adaptable LASNIK Jacket. Are there other items that you would like to launch? “Absolutely…we are working on a LASNIK Shirt where you can store your glasses; it will be perfect for summer. But we are also working on new cleaning products for eyewear, and also on our eyewear brand SEEOO. We are always trying to create something smart, easy, cool or with practical options to simplify the life of the consumer.” www.eyeshaker.com JG