Creative spirits

Eyewear label VAVA pushes the envelope with their avantgarde design, commitment to sustainability and distinctive collaboration work which has included designs with Patricia Mamona and with the architect, Kengo Kuma. Pedro da Silva shared some personal insights on the brand and what he is currently working on, from the opening of new offices, and a major new collaboration launch for MIDO to finalising the designs for the collection which will show at Silmo 2023.

What are you working on this week? As usual I’m working on several things at the same time. The priority is to finalize, together with our Sustainabiliy department and Graphic Designer, our first Sustainability Report regarding the year 2021.  I’ve also been working a lot this week on our new office building project. This year we have bought a 600sqm space in a post-industrial building in the city of Porto. It’s an ongoing project work we started several months; we are  transforming this old industrial space in a beautiful new office.  I’m also finalizing the designs of the SILMO 2023 collection, which we need to start prototyping now. Designing product is always a big responsibility, and this week I need to finalise the collection! I’m very happy with the new concepts planned for SILMO 2023.

What was your most important release at SILMO 2022 and what was the feedback? Our most important release at SILMO this year was model BL0034, which was nominated for a Silmo d´Or. A small unisex square sunglass shape, with round lenses, this minimalistic model stands out for its super small silhouette, nonetheless, the model is interesting because it can fit a great variety of faces due to its generous width of 145mm.

The feedback we received on this style was extremely positive. Customers liked the uniqueness and the avant-garde concept of the model. They were surprised that such a small sunglass could fit so many different faces. The best market feedback for us was the fact that this model was totally sold out by the second day of SILMO. We are bringing it back again for the MIDO fair in February, with new colorways.

VAVA is involved in projects outside eyewear…..what was the NEOPOP installation? Do particular styles or concepts of art work inspire you? We have always collaborated with Electronic Music Festivals. Back in 2014, the year of VAVA’s launch, we did an important installation at SONAR Barcelona called “RE-ENVISION”. This year we did a beautiful installation at the first SONAR Lisbon. This summer VAVA presented the SPEED – SLEEP installation at NeoPop festival. This space seeks, ultimately, to become a converging point of exchange between customers, artists and music lovers. The installation aimed to explore the dialect between Speed and Sleep. When one first examines the history of the modern age, its seems to be predominantly a history of SPEED. Avant-garde art and design has been visibly in the vanguard of this development and has produced plenty of inventions and innovations that keep the world moving. We are witnesses to the fact that the fascination for speed has been tied to its exact opposite – the desire to pull back and slow down, SLEEP, the craving for relaxation and contemplation. Modern life increasingly imposes itself as a flow of two complementary tendencies: speed and sleep. VAVA’s installation at NeoPop reflected this dualism in a unique way, moving towards a critical theme of modern society.

My keen interest for the Bauhaus movement and minimalism goes back a long way. Basic shapes played a pivotal role in Bauhaus ideas and the way they taught art.  Basic and simple shapes, like squares, circles and triangles, the most common shapes in the industrial world stimulate my vision in design. Much of the man-made world is composed of these shapes. On the other hand, I’m very much inspired by science fiction, films like Metropolis, Blade Runner and Space Odyssey, that results from an excessively one-sided belief in technological progress.  I wanted to make a label that could associate the highly conceptual language of machinery and the arts. Ultimately, the brand aims to achieve a contemporaneous basic look and at the time an aesthetic which is conceptual and timeless.

Sustainability has become an important focus in what you develop. What is VAVA doing that is over and above the ordinary in this field? Back in 2014, VAVA was already putting efforts into creating a more sustainable product – a task in which we succeeded – but since then we have put so much of our energy – as so many start-ups do – into trying to navigate through the big waves of the industry. But WE – and society as a whole – need to do much more because the changes required simply are not happening fast enough.

Today VAVA shares this sense of urgency. We must act now. In 2021, with the launch of THEOREM, we entered a new phase, an era where sustainability plays the leading role, and this will be our most important project in the coming years. We are working hard to play our part in the global transition and create a more sustainable product, all the while being a business who truly lives by its values. Protecting our planet must go beyond downsizing our own environmental footprint.

“It is vital that independent labels lead the way and implement advanced sustainability programmes. We are very proud to be launching our first ever sustainability report….”

As we head towards Xmas and then a series of optical fairs (opti/100% Optical and MIDO) what are you preparing, can you give us a sneak peak? We are pleased to announce that at MIDO 2023 we will be showcasing a very important collaboration with an American Musician. She is a pioneer of electronic music who has been pushing the boundaries of music. She is a musician, sound designer and composer, who found early success in the 1970s with her electronic music and sound effects for films and television commercials. She has been also Grammy Award nominated. We will announce more about her before MIDO!

At  the same time, and in time for opti, we will be presenting our newest models from the aluminum series – they had been completely sold out for some time. Our customers will be happy to have them back again. We will launch some ‘carryover’ models in new VAVA colours. Find out more about VAVA Eyewear at https://vavaeyewear.com. Portrait photo (top) by Amanda Sellem (at Silmo 2022), exclusively for Eyestylist.com. 

Repopulating the world of optics with fashion-forward accessories designed with a fresh and desirable edge in mind is at the core of founder Masaki Hirose’s approach – but that does not mean his products are limited by gender, they’re limitless. Eyestylist caught up with the Japanese accessories innovator.

“I started working at DITA Eyewear in 2006, and my own brand Diffuser Tokyo was created six years later in 2012,” says Masaki Hirose, the Japanese founder of Diffuser Tokyo, an innovator in accessories who has changed the face of what these products once were. “At that time, many people around me were working with Japanese clothing brands, and I think I learned a lot from them. When I was in charge of domestic sales, I was in constant communication with many people across the eyewear industry. They were looking for something the current market didn’t provide: fashionable eyewear accessories. I researched the accessories market and discovered many high-end eyewear stores didn’t carry eyewear accessories: they were unavailable.”

Masaki discovered that the number of stores looking for new designs and fashionable eyewear cases in the Japanese market was increasing rapidly, but there were only cheap and ordinary accessories which were mostly manufactured in China.

So he embarked on a journey to make on-trend, stylish eyewear accessories for the stores himself. “I had no design experience, nor any knowledge of how to procure raw materials. There are some suppliers out there who do not welcome inexperienced people, and I had a hard time finding the right ones to work with at first. Many refused to sell materials to us. Now I feel blessed that Diffuser has gained so much support from the eyewear industry and consumers, making it the popular brand it is today.”

Masaki started out with an interest in optics and fashion retail, which helped. “I was interested in both so to speak. Both have philosophies rooted in fashion per se, so I found both industries interesting even if the way of thinking and perception of each one is actually completely different. Of course, as I mentioned, there were not many options in the field of optics when I started this brand; I couldn’t find eyewear accessories that men like me were enthusiastic about or wanted to wear. I therefore focused on design concepts and materials used in other types of products…my products were based on the idea that the customer who purchases it will feel some kind of excitement and joy…”

Realising the limitless potential of something more stylish and design-focused, the range became extensive and more orientated towards gender-fluid design. “We are not aiming to segregate our products according to gender. When we start our design process, we start with the choice of the materials before moving into texture, shape and other aspects of sourcing to create a style suited to anyone. At the present time we have many female customers; some of them tend to lean towards our more masculine products and we’ve welcomed this from the start.

The brand has also differentiated itself by collaborating with small artisan studios and creators in Japan. They work with leather specialists outside Tokyo. “Many of the leather artisans had reached a turning point when I started this brand, so I started working with them. Some of them had never made eyewear accessories before. Our cord factory, for example, takes on new challenges every day in order to respond to my requests. We believe that this initiative can improve their sustainability and in turn ours, and lead them to acquire new technologies and opportunities.”
Masaki adds that he also sells a product that can easily be repaired. “Effective and valuable usage and reduction of waste is a kind of Japanese value in the present day. We provide the customer with after-sales service repair and technical advice, and we’ve seen from the few repairs we’ve made so far that customers want to continue using our products even if they were purchased a long time ago. Like taking care of a favourite leather shoe, this is another way to reduce waste and remain eco-friendly.” An exclusive feature by Victoria  G. Brunton and Clodagh Norton – Eyestylist.com

To find out more about DIFFUSER TOKYO visit https://diffuser-tokyo.com/en/

Multitalented designer Veronika Wildgruber began her career in eyewear alongside the celebrated Alain Mikli in Paris. After that, the young creative went on to win a Silmo D’Or with no less than her first ever frame design. Twelve years later, with commissions by brands including Hermès under her belt, Eyestylist catches up with the now established and highly regarded director and founder of her namesake eyewear label. 

 Tell us about your early life, and the journey you have taken in order to get to where you are today? I studied industrial design in Bolzano, Northern Italy. I think when I applied, my first intention was to be a graphic designer. I had liked my classes in industrial design and communication design and actually right up to the first half of the year, I realized that I really wanted to do product design and create objects. So, I graduated in industrial design and my plan was to become a furniture designer or a household object / interior designer. Then, I started to work in Paris doing an internship with a designer who was working with fashion as well as in product design.

I intended to stay in Paris for four months, and in the end I stayed for years. After the internship I got into working a freelance job which rolled into another freelance job and so forth. Eventually, I began working for an Italian designer who shared his space with an eyewear maker Jacques Durand who was working alongside Mikli at the time. He was a big name in the city – everybody was talking about Mikli. To be honest, I didn’t really know Lee’s glasses because I was not involved with and didn’t have any contact within the industry. I never truly thought about working with him. It was all very new for me. In the moment it was more like an arrangement, sort of like “let’s share the space and maybe my assistant can give you some assistant work as well”. Then, from my perspective, it was solely about a paid job – you know, of course a rarity in the design area. So I said, yes. I think he also believed it was interesting to have somebody who was a designer, but didn’t know anything about his area – something that would make it interesting, and someone he would actually quite like to do some projects with.

He asked me to help on some collections and to design with my own eye. I have to say it wasn’t something I was always yearning to do, but I thought I’d like a bit of a challenge. It wasn’t at all a window into my future career at first, but it was more like, why not try it?

I crafted my first design with cardboard because I didn’t really know how to approach it. So, then we created the prototype frame with a model maker in acetate and presented it at Silmo in 2010 – and it won a Silmo D’Or! It felt like my first real moment after joining the eyewear world. It was a big surprise.

At the time I didn’t have a brand or a name in the industry, so the frame was just a number, without even a title. I think that kind of led me to believe I had a talent for design in this area, and pushed me to start this journey. I thought, if I am going to do it, I’ll do it with my own name – not as a collaboration or in a position working for someone else – but to try it for myself. From then on it was a strange and slow start: four pairs of glasses and two years later another four pairs of glasses and so on. It was never really a launch, you know, or a collection. That’s why I consider my growth into this world really organic; I wasn’t jumping in the deep end, I wanted to keep up my work in furniture design too – I would’ve felt as though I was cheating on my original dream if I had neglected it.

(more…)

Eyestylist Exclusive: The Austrian label has a series of developments to announce, with  innovation at the heart of every frame

Rolf Spectacles, one of the pioneering small companies in the eyewear business, which remains true to its focus on quality and innovation in producing natural products with respect for the natural environment, has launched the first texture for its 3D printed plant-based frames. “This is the first release in the 3D printed substance mount collection made from castor beans,” Bernhard Wolf told Eyestylist. “There are more to come.” This first texture announced in March (https://www.eyestylist.com/2022/03/rolf-spectacles-adds-texture-to-plant-based-frames/) has a detailed pattern that reproduces the textures of natural structures like rock, dry earth. “If you look closely the pattern fades out towards the temple tip, this has taken a lot of tests and trials to get right, all done in our workshops in Austria. We are now working on new texture effects, always inspired from nature around us – the next one will appear in the regular substance line.”

In true Rolf style, away from the eco hype, the team has continued quietly through the last months in developing the possibilities of the 3D printed plant-based eyewear, while also turning attention to the development of 3D printed titanium designs. “We are always building our skills to create everything here in one place….we are completely self-reliant, everything is done in-house and finishes by hand with a process that strives for quality, continuity in innovation and always with transparency and  a genuine respect for nature and the environment. Above:  Brothers Bernhard and Roland Wolf, Rolf Spectacles

Meanwhile, other new projects have been evolving successfully. With several new dads among the team at Rolf, a kid’s collection was inevitable. “The great thing about the plant-based 3d material is its comfort and durability, it’s ideal for youngsters,” Bernhard told Eyestylist. “We are going to launch five new shapes for kids in four colours. We have also studied the possibilities of a really extremely comfortable Asian fit, this material offers the right versatility, strength and style.”

In the  wood collection too, time and effort has been spent in researching bestsellers, whether shapes or particular colours of natural wood to further develop the line to accommodate what the customer really wants. “We have been able to put a lot of work into creating combinations of favourite wood colours, and the results are really something – you can play with two types of wood on the front and the lining for very different effects in the mix of colours and grains.” Rolf Spectacles will exhibit at the trade fairs MIDO and Opti. To find out more about their natural collections, visit www.rolf-spectacles.com By Clodagh Norton – All rights reserved.