Shades of Meaning
Just as some people can never have enough shoes, Jeannine Newton can never have enough shades.
“It’s a fetish,” Newton says. The 45-year-old Capistrano Beach resident, who has 16 or 17 pairs of sunglasses, still adds to her collection whenever a new pair catches her eye.
“I like something trendy and different, and a pair of sunglasses is not as big an expense as buying trendy clothes,” she says. “Sunglasses are a great way to accessorize. I feel hip.”
While sunglasses do have a function--to shield the eyes from the sun’s ultraviolet rays--people such as Newton, who have cultivated a wardrobe of them, consider shades a crucial fashion accessory. They won’t rest until they have the latest, coolest styles.
What else but vanity could justify a pair of Daniel Swarovski sunglasses, encrusted with the same Austrian crystals used on Swarovski jewelry, with a price tag of $560 to $2,500? Plenty of cheaper sunglasses offer the same protection, but they don’t make the wearer look like a movie star.
“It’s jewelry for the face,” says Sally Marciano, a representative of Swarovski, which is carried at the optometry office of Dr. W. Andrew Cies in Newport Beach and MainPlace Optometry in Santa Ana. Some of the more subtle styles have a solitary gem on each temple; others, such as those worn by singer Patty LaBelle, have an all-over pave of round-cut crystals.
Slaves of sunglass fashion believe such pricey pairs are a worthy investment because they have the power to revamp their image. Newton, for instance, used to wear wrap styles by Black Flys because they gave her a “bad image” that discouraged people from approaching her when she was out walking on the beach, she says. Now she wears retro-looking shades by Gigi Feline Eyewear of Costa Mesa; they convey a more glamorous, feminine attitude, she says.
Fiction, a sunglasses store at the Lab in Costa Mesa, caters to those in search of cutting-edge shades. On a recent afternoon, a twentysomething guy test-drives a pair of avant-garde frames.
“I look cool in them--I think,” he says.
The eye wear isn’t kept under glass; customers are encouraged to try on everything from tiny spectacles that barely conceal the sockets to ones that cover the face like a scuba mask. Customers can check themselves out by posing before a video camera and studying their profile on a TV screen.
Outrageous styles aren’t for everyone. Often it takes strong features and a bold personality to pull off a look. “You don’t want the frame to wear you,” says Jei Carbajal, manager of Fiction.
Some of the more extreme styles at Fiction are by Germany-based company Funk. A wrap style in frosty shades of green, blue, yellow or green looks like “a Batman or Robin mask,” Carbajal said; ‘60s-derivative oval-shaped frames are upholstered in fuzzy velvet solids, stripes, zebra, lizard or other wild prints; and the Wing model resembles the fins on a Cadillac. Funk eye wear ranges from about $50 to $100.
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The latest collections feature a lot of cat’s-eyes, Jackie-O ovals, retro aviators and square-shaped lenses inspired by shades from summers past. Many have colorful lenses that look like they’ve been dipped in egg dye.
“The colors are light enough so you can wear the shades inside,” says Kathleen Gillespie, president of Gigi Feline Eyewear, which makes sunglasses by and for women.
Gigi’s latest are design descendants. Deja Vu is a copy of a vintage cat’s-eye that Gillespie found at a swap meet; Agent 99 is a square-shaped frame in black or tortoise with colored lenses.
“We call them Agent 99 because [Barbara Felden] wore them in ‘Get Smart,’ ” Gillespie says. Gigi sunglasses cost about $35 to $55 and are carried at Sunglass Express stores and at the Edge in Huntington Beach.
When it comes to vintage styles, some people want the original. They find old frames at thrift stores and swap meets and replace the lenses.
Dita, an eye-wear line that started in San Clemente and moved to Los Angeles a year ago, was influential in resurrecting vintage styles two years ago. Dita designers use bits and pieces of old frames found in thrift stores to create new shades.
“We’ll seldom use the entire frame. We might just use a part of it, or combine parts from three different frames,” says Troy Schmidt, president of Dita.
One Dita style partly inspired by old sunglasses: the Jones, a rectangular-shaped frame with a double laminate that combines in black or brown with caramel-colored backing. Dita sunglasses are available for about $75 to $150 at Fiction, L.A. Eyeworks, Nordstrom stores and Molly Brown in Newport Beach.
Schmidt predicts that sunglass-seekers will be sporting more square shapes.
“It’s the smart, nerdy guy” look, he says. And suddenly this summer, that’s cool.
