Designer Spotlight : Group of Active Types Develop Sunglasses With Soul
About a dozen lanky surfers, skateboarders and snowboarders are striking comical poses and having a good time as camera strobes flash away and onlookers egg them on.
This photo shoot party is a far cry from the traditional approach to fashion photography, but the scene is exactly as Black Flys Eyewear in Costa Mesa wants to portray itself to the sunglass-buying public.
Partners Jack A. Martinez and Dan Flecky--themselves surfers, snowboarders and skateboarders--started Black Flys a year ago to attract the “hard cores”--active types who needed lenses that didn’t “get too space-age looking, but had style, some soul,” says Martinez.
He has a lengthy resume of logo and textile design work he has done for PCH, Ocean Pacific and its subsidiaries Jimmy ‘Z and Hydro Lite. Flecky is a entrepreneur; his other company manufactures stickers for surf wear and skateboard companies.
Martinez raids thrift shops for frame inspiration. He prefers old frames because “they’re really funky, really blocky and bubbly. It’s like everything in the ‘50s and ‘60s got overdesigned.” He expects one of this season’s hottest sellers to be the Soul Fly model ($100), which was inspired by a 95-cent junk store find. The other spectacles in the collection sell for $70 to $120.
The frames are produced in France, Italy and Japan from Martinez’s designs and made of bamboo-tumbled nylon, stainless nickel or “zyl,” a plastic material with colored flecks. Printed on the inside of the frames are pop statements such as “Ya groovin wid the rhythm “ or “Stoney melon chillin’.”
But substance, not just style, reigns as the all-important factor, says Martinez.
Most of the company’s resources go into providing high-quality lenses from Japan that are made of ground and polished glass. They are scratch resistant and block 100% of ultraviolet rays.
Only one of the season’s nine styles comes with plastic lenses, a model dubbed the Poor Fly ($80). Martinez says, “The polycarbonate lenses serve a functional purpose for snowboarders so they won’t cut their eyes if they fall.”
The insect part of the hip brand name came from fellow surfer Jeff Yokiama, “which worked great because flies have the big gnarly eyes,” Martinez says. “We added black to make it more punk.”
The collection has spread from local surf shops to trendsetter boutiques such as Positive Eye-Ons on Melrose in Hollywood and Patricia Fields in New York’s SoHo district. The sunglasses sell in Orange County at In-Flight in Seal Beach, Stuart’s in San Clemente and Hobie Sports in Corona del Mar, Dana Point and Laguna Beach.
The success in boutiques has gotten Martinez working on offering higher priced spectacles as well as a line designed only for women that he plans to name (what else?) Fly Girls.
