aarn: e2 47.18 sunglasses [eyewear]
Numbering systems are way more timeless than names, but if I had to name this frame, it would be called “The Worrier” or “Elton John John John.” Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the numbers, “e2” because this is the second pair of eyeglass frames that I have designed and fabricated, and “47.18” because that is the size of these frames.
With eyewear, scale is a particularly difficult thing to judge, especially because the glasses need to fit some pretty complex and diverse facial geometry. The completion of these frames has brought me technically much closer to where I want to be with the process of designing and fabricating eyewear, but the fit part is going to take me a while.
This pair took me about 20-hrs to make, spread out over three days. It started with a sheet of NOS Mazzucchelli Tectonic tortoise shell cellulose acetate (probably from the 70s), laminated in the nose pad region and CNC milled for the rough form. The frame was then hand filed for appropriate contours, grooved for lenses, fit and drilled for hinges, riveted, filed again, glazed, heat formed, de-glazed, wet sanded, polished, assembled, polished, re-glazed, temples formed, and then washed.
I compiled some of my initial sketches and notes since the last frame into a nice collage, which shows part of what had to happen on the back end before anything was modeled or any cutting occurred. Stay tuned for another pair in a month or so.
Photos (Big thanks to Andrew for being my fashion model)
