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Variations on a Classic Theme

12th November 2012 Designs in tortoise are a highlight of this season’s eyewear collections – we’ve seen a variety of styles with individual characteristics. Clodagh Norton featured a bold tortoise design on Eyestylist.com on 9th November, and the two designs shown here verify the wonderful tortoise interpretations that are possible. Fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff, and luxury eyewear designer Shane Baum have collaborated on a stunning collection, including Chelsea (above), a virtuoso creation that teams tortoise acetate with gold. The gently sculpted shape is all handcrafted, and the designers are scrupulous with details that are precise and intricate. www.baumvision.com

Happy Days is the sprightly new collection from Vanni in Italy. The design above (v1900) features multilayer acetate with a mix of transparent and Havana, to create a tortoise variation with blond highlights. The diversity of tortoise really does make these frame designs eyewear treasures! www.vanniocchiali.com JG

9th November 2012 Unique shapes accentuating the brow line are a recurring theme and will be increasingly sought after in the months ahead. One that caught my eye recently was ‘Rock-a-Nore’ from the British label RockOptika, named after the beach front in Old Hastings, home to the designer Tom Herrington. It’s a man’s acetate style – available in tortoise and a very suave ‘Mazzucchelli’ pure black – that is quite big in size and statement, with a modified pentagon shape combined with a retro key hole nose bridge. Image above, Rock-a-Nore by RockOptika (from £249.00), photographed by Tom Herrington. www.rockoptika.co.uk

Jeremy Tarian’s snazzy Sky Bar also illustrates this direction perfectly – it is a sunglass design with a symmetrical zig zag formation in dazzling gold metal. This is a fabulously unique take on the brow accentuation – mostly we are seeing examples of straight horizontal lines over the top of the front of the frame so this one is rather special. Tarian’s frames are made in the Jura in France, and the designer pays careful attention to the quality of the materials and comfort of each unique design. www.jeremytarian.com CN

by Tim Groen

6th November 2012 This portrait of Selima Salaun’s daughter, Zoe, caught our attention when we had the great pleasure of meeting designer-optician Selima for the first time in Paris. I am delighted to have had permission to be able to publish it. Photographed by Tim Groen (www.timgroen.com), the image is one of a series of Zoe and her classmates, alongside two professional models, in a new photographic presentation by Selima Optique described by the designer as a labour of love, created with friends. Born and raised in New York, Zoe, the youngest of Selima’s two children, is a freshman at McGill in Montreal.

Dedicated to the stars of French popular culture of the 1950s and 1960s, the frames featured in the new lookbook, such as the expressive Maricruz in red (worn by Zoe above), highlight the colourful palette and retro context of Selima’s hand-crafted designs. Hair looking gorgeous by Yves Durif, www.yvesdurif.com. www.selimaoptique.com CN

Made in Portugal

5th November 2012 It is exciting to see the arrival of more small independent eyewear labels that are carrying family spectacle-making traditions forward again. Some of those we are getting to know are making their frames in workshops or spectacle ateliers where their forebears had produced and handfinished them in the past; they are not only using old techniques and old-fashioned tools for some of the work required to make a frame but also vintage components or materials that have been left in situ over time, and are now being rediscovered. Here is one from Portugal! I recently met John and Ramiro Paulino in London and they showed me the collection for 2012/13 which was launched in Lisbon this season at the elegant Optica Sacramento –  www.eyestylist.com/2011/07/optica-do-sacramento-lisbon-portugal/.

The label was born out of Ramiro’s desire to continue the heritage and craft of small-production spectacle-making that his grandfather began in the late 1930s. Paulino’s frames today are made of smooth high-quality acetate, and are styled on iconic shapes with adaptations for faces today. There is an overall elegance and sensitivity in the designs and the colours used as well as an astute attention in the detail such as the use of the little vintage pins which Ramiro found in the workshop. The Portuguese family roots of the label are well referenced; the spectacle cases are made of traditional Portuguese cork and the frames are named after members of the Paulino family, past and present. For more on Paulino Spectacles on Eyestylist.com, click on the link: www.eyestylist.com/2012/08/sara/. From what we hear, you will soon be able to find the collection in Covent Garden, London… updates coming. www.paulinospectacles.com  CN

‘Baroque Eyes’

1st November 2012  Since Joan Grady’s Baroque feature on Eyestylist.com on 1st October, I have come across the latest shoot by Moo Eyewear, so here we are with baroque inspiration Part 2. I have been following Moo Piyasombatkul for a while since I first saw her frames on the Browns Fashion website (www.brownsfashion.com). The baroque concept is exciting and much loved by the fashion press, and the fine porcelain in the collection is an intriguing and unique decorative effect that Moo has studied with great passion and sensitivity.

Moo Piyasombatkul talked to us about the baroque inspiration in her collection: “Initially this was my graduation project at Central Saint Martins. I was doing a BA Jewellery design course. When I graduated in June 2010, I started with an afternoon tea theme as I love having tea and desserts together. My favourite tearoom is Sketch in London… and that was where I got inspired to do this whole Baroque eyewear series. The interior of Sketch uses different antique furnitures but somehow they have put them all together and made it look fresh and new. The ceiling art work is Baroque in style, and I wanted to work with those classic elements but with a twist. I use vintage frames with decorations made from handmade porcelain, similar to what is used for ceramic homewares.  This combination was designed to fit the ‘new antique’ theory of  Marcel Wanders, which was the crucial part of how I developed my work.”

To see more of Moo’s work, visit www.brownsfashion.com/AtoZofDesigners/Designer.aspx?d=2439667 CN