Creative spirits

In 2011, the French eyewear company FACE A FACE launched a second brand, WOOW, a colourful stylish line of off-beat frames with engaging messages on the temples. Eyestylist met the young designers behind the catchy concept, Claire Ferreira and Marianne Dezes (above).

How did you come up with “WOOW” eyewear? In 2011, we had been working on the possibility of creating another brand in addition to FACE A FACE. We wanted it to be young and fresh with an accessible price. We started with the concept of the frame, and focused on the temples or arms which face each other – the original focus of FACE A FACE. We imagined them starting to chat to one another – and that was the beginning of this very different idea. We now see the WOOW label as the child of FACE A FACE.

Why WOOW? Woow is a palindrome, a fun “sound” that people use as an expression for many different things. You can say it any way you want and it is totally spontaneous. As a collection name, it works perfectly with the witty phrases on the temples. We wanted to see if we could create a new relationship with eyewear through this name, inspiring happiness, joy and hope through British inspired humour, colour and the personal touch of the words on different frame styles.

How are the frames styled? The shapes are always trendy and fashionable, for the young and the daring. The touch of colour is really specific in the combination of materials. Our inspiration came from London, but always with a strong influence, naturally, from our own French taste. One of our idiosyncratic design details – highlighting the words at the temple tips – came from the design of the old-fashioned typewriters and their classic round keys.

As designers, you have created something completely different. Are you pleased with the results? WOOW is like our baby, it’s a collection we adore! When we were training, we didn’t only learn about shape and colour and product design, for us designing means thinking too – and coming up with new ideas. With WOOW we had the chance to oversee all the steps, from the concept to the creation of the actual frames, giving life to a brand with an evolution that we hope our wearers will truly enjoy. you don’t just choose a frame with WOOW, it’s really about choosing a lifestyle!

Tell us about the styles releasing this month? The new collection includes different looks: a more “working girl” styling, through to architectural shapes and, on the other hand, some very feminine frames. Bigger trendy silhouettes and a mix of more unusual colours stand out. Our frames are tempting like sweets –  it’s difficult choose which one to go for! For more details about WOOW, visit www.wooweyewear.com CN

New Yorker Dayle from @artfulcitystyle describes herself as “combining art and style in Manhattan”. A former advocate and public speaker, today, alongside a busy volunteer job in an art gallery, Dayle is the star of an Instagram account with 20.5k followers created with professional photographer, Denton Taylor (www.dentontaylor.com). Dayle’s clever approach to personal style and enthusiasm and openness to trying new things has turned her into a fashion influencer with particular appeal to a fashion-aware over 40 audience. Eyestylist asked her about her inspiration and passion for clothes, accessories and statement eyeglasses.

Your expertise in styling accessories and eyewear has developed out of a love for fashion and art. Tell us more. I have always viewed style as a form of self-expression. So dressing myself—figuring out how to accessorize an outfit or how to combine pieces— is my art form. I have always been drawn to the arts—both visual and performing arts. I did musical theater for years, worked in an art gallery when I was in school, and now, in my retirement, am a docent at an art museum.

Your unique style involves combining outfits with interesting accessories and glasses/sunglasses. Have you always done this? Accessorizing is something I have always done and had fun with. Social media has not changed anything about how I put myself together. It merely allows me to share it with a larger audience.

Above: Dayle wears VAVA spectacles – model WL 0009 in Mazzuchelli bioplastic- a 100% recyclable  material (www.vavaeyewear.com). Photography by @dentontaylor for @artfulcitystyle / NYC.

Eyewear is for you a statement. Do you shop for frames in one optical store and can you tell us about it? Do they offer you style advice or do you seek out particular shapes or colours depending on your apparel/jewellery for the season? Are they finding “original” frames for you or are you shopping around? I buy most of my glasses from Petite Optique (www.petiteoptique.com) in New York. They have a great selection of unique frames. They know me well and know what I like and what will look good on my face and still work with my prescription. I tend to do best with round frames. I am also looking for frames that are unusual and that most resemble art.

How did you come to select the VAVA frame? I had been looking for black frames for quite a while, but wanted something that didn’t look too severe, since I am very fair-skinned. I tried on many many black frames until I saw the VAVA and fell in love with that.

Can you offer any tips on styling eyewear, for anyone who has not considered that their specs are in fact an extension of their personality. How can we approach the overall look and coordinate with everything else we wear successfully? Many people find it difficult to pull off and need to find that confidence. I think that eyeglasses are a great accessory. As long as you need to wear them, celebrate that! I either use eyeglasses to bring a pop of color to an outfit or to color coordinate with what I am wearing. Finding shapes that work best on your face is extremely important.

What have been your favourite frames to wear in terms of shape, colour or unique design? 
I mostly wear round frames and I like large glasses. I have a lot of glasses by theo. They come out with interesting and unique designs every year and also have great colors!

Find the eyewear featured in this story at Petite Optique, New York – www.petiteoptique.com. Browse the collections at: www.vavaeyewear.com / www.theo.be CN

Annie and Vanessa are the founders of London brand Frame Chain, a fast moving eyewear accessories brand that is pushing all the right buttons in fashion retail and leading optical boutiques, across the world. As the duo get ready to pack their bags for Capsule, Eyestylist asked them to explain their quick path to success.

How did it all start? (Annie:) I have champagne taste and lemonade budgets! I lost about four pairs of glasses in a week and couldn’t afford to replace them. So I bought a cheap chain for my last pair. I would scour Europe looking for chic ones that didn’t look like a shoe lace or turn my neck green. I failed! So I hounded my then flat mate, soon to be business partner and best friend to make some- she was designing jewelry at the time. To shut me up she suggested we do it together, and FRAME CHAIN was born.

Liberty were the first retailer to stock us in 2014, and they continue to. This is incredible validation and we used their nod of approval to grow confidence in our idea. We have awesome stockists around the globe- mainly independent kick-ass optical boutiques with incredible talent for curated store concepts. We have been suprised by the success in Greece. The Middle East can’t get enough of the pearls! We are in Spain, France, Portugal, and even the Maldives and Taiwan.

You are both creative and very entrepreneurial…would you agree? Thank you for that – it’s a huge compliment. We both love to do things – to make things happen, to go on adventures and be useful! Vanessa is much more creative than I am. She can draw, design, build you a wall, design a house and bake incredible cakes! She is always thinking laterally; her approach to life is unique and pure. She has her own business already and thrives on having freedom to make things happen.

My nick name is ‘the whirlwind’- I am so excitable and determined that if you don’t know me it could feel like you are in a whirlwind. When I have my mind set on something, I make it happen. I studied biology, chemistry and maths, but I love to draw and make things with my hands. That 50/50 ‘left brain right brain’ gives me a good foundation for business. Plus we are both from up north and LOVE to talk and meet new people.

We like to think we are two sides of the same coin, two minds, one vision. We ebb and flow in and out of different roles. We are both designing, both selling, both creating. I do more of the spread sheet things and Vanessa does more of the visual and creative things. We do what we need to to make our little dream a reality. There is no formula!

What has been your most “creative” and exciting project so far? We are working on it as as we speak. But we LOVED doing the pop-up with Cutler & Gross.

One of you lives in London, and one of you in Spain. Does this effect the business in a positive way and if so how? It means we have to be focused, organized and efficient. That can only be good. It means we have different sources of inspiration and two home offices – one significantly sunnier than the other.

Can you describe your latest chains in the collection as there were a few new ones at SILMO, and tell us what you feel your direction is in 2018. We always start with the idea of jewelry. Chains that we want to wear – first and foremost – as a necklace or increasingly as earrings. This season, we focused on that a lot, developing it in three ways:

– the pearl range expanded, with new colours and sizes. Pearls are a trend and here to stay and we are having a lot of fun with this. We are playing with the idea of earrings. So styles like ‘loop de loop’ and ‘drop it’ have embellishments perfectly placed to hang like earrings. There is more of this to come for the summer and the the festival season. And now we are really playing with colours. By introducing rhodium and black enamel for our more masculine fans, we have pushed more rose gold and mixed the metals and colours on one chain. Find more details at www.framechain.com CN

French Eyewear by Pascal Guidice and Christophe Morcamp

Plein Les Mirettes glasses are produced near Evreux, Normandy. Pascal Guidice and Christophe Morcamp shared their eyewear story since creating their women’s eyewear label in January 2013.

Have you both been in eyewear for a while or did you begin your careers in different sectors? 
Christophe Morcamp: My first job was managing visual impairments and strabismus as an orthoptist. Then, over the years after further training in optics, I took a position as an assistant ophthalmologist. At the same time I created two optical shops in Normandy. This was a new experience and allowed me to learn about French eyewear very quickly. I fell in love when shopping for my stores with the creative collections. Making a collection of my very own soon started to appeal to me.
Pascal has a background in R&D, purchase management and finance – in other areas of business. It is the union of our complementary skills that has enabled Plein Les Mirettes to establish itself as a specialist in women’s eyewear in just five years.

Has it been difficult to grow your small label and what has been the main challenge? What has been the best thing for both of you?
We are lucky; the collection quickly finds an audience. The graphic quality and the traditional French production of our glasses enabled us to quickly find our place in a market which is already saturated.
In the first year, we opened more than 200 customer accounts in France, started exporting to Italy with Mattis our distributor there, and also to the Netherlands and Belgium. We were able to develop sufficiently for Pascal to leave his job to join me in this beautiful adventure in eyewear!

You are only designing women’s frames but their appeal is huge! What is your focus? Why do women love your frame styles?
Plein Les Mirettes is addressed specifically to women. I wanted to have fun drawing, but also to address a lot of women through these designs. I think women appreciate the glasses because they have been made especially for them!

You have a sensitive colour palette – that is broad and quite complex in terms of the graduated effects and transparency. Is this a natural gift or has it taken a lot of work to arrive at this in acetate?
I have a natural sensitivity to colour that comes from my childhood. I was lucky to be surrounded by women with strong characters and assertive tastes. I learnt a lot about what they liked.

In recent years, what have been your favourite trips abroad? Tell us a bit about this experience.
We are both a bit wild and we occasionally enjoy partying with a few special friends. During the many trips that we are now making to the various eyewear fairs around the world, we go out very little and dedicate ourselves exclusively to work. However we sometimes take a few extra days away from the madness of Vegas or NYC; we enjoy walking around the streets of Copenhagen or making personal visits to see our distributor in Canada or Tel Aviv.

We are fascinated by your factory in Normandy and its traditional production. Feel free to talk about this as it must be a huge benefit for you to have an intimate relationship with your producers and to live so close to them?
Our production is just near our house and this is a major asset for our success. The workshop and the team working there are close to us and understand our tastes. Being “on the spot” allows me to have access to some of their acetate stock and I think it makes me more responsive to the demands of women and opticians. I can also have an eye on every step of the production and have some things changed in real time if need be. But just as much as this proximity, another important thing is our producer’s know-how and recognised expertise.

Finally, what do you both love doing outside eyewear? What inspires you and what makes you feel happy or creatively inspired?
Pascal and I love to spend our life at work. We have the chance to work together, and we have our offices within the floors of our house in Normandy.
We are very different in our interests. I love cooking, gardening, and spending time modifying the decor of the rooms in the house, drawing objects, clothes, accessories. Pascal loves reading and visiting museums; and he absolutely loves ‘shoes’. www.plein-les-mirettes.fr CN