100% Union Jack

All eyes are literally on London this summer as the world’s top eyewear designers gear up for the 2012 Olympic Games.  Paying homage to British heritage, Gucci’s sporty City Series shade, artfully adorned with UK colored lenses and an inside London cityscape, is sure to tie your britches in a bunch.  If you prefer to go 100% Union Jack, than Jimmy Choo’s 80’s inspired ALEX sunglass is your new best friend.  The square-shaped acetate sunny is available in four bold colors, all featuring different lenses:  red frame with smoke lenses, blue frame with blue mirrored lenses, white frames with blue mirrored lenses, and black frames with smoke lenses.  To top it off, Jimmy Choo appeases the history buff by inscribing the meaning of the Union Jack on the inside of the frame and side arms of the shade.

I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether you prefer Gucci’s sporty City Series shade or Jimmy Choo’s 100% Union Jack wayfarer.  Either way, the world is about to become a bit more beautiful as the patriotic glamour once reserved for UK’s Kate’s (Middleton and Moss) is bestowed to the fashionable commoner.

 Gucci                  

Frame Your Face for Spring and Eyecessorize!

 

Frame your face for spring and eyecessorize!  This season is all about standing out and having fun.  Whether you prefer comfort or drama, there is a shape or style sure to brighten up your Spring wardrobe.  So how do you make sure you’re picking the perfect pair?  Easy!  The fashion experts at Cohen’s Fashion Optical have scoured the Spring 2012 runways and pulled the hottest trends for males and females.   What are you waiting for?  See the world in style!

 

Spring 2012’s Top Trends for Women

 

1.  Cat Eye

Meeeeeeeeoooow!  Move over Kourtney Kardashian, this fierce shape has been spotted all over the runways.  Whether you’re searching for new reading glasses or sunnies, springs most fashion forward shade is sure to make you purr. 

2.  Ladylike Details

Embrace your demur side and opt for shades rich in delicate pastels, lace, and floral motifs.  Pretty in pink is no longer for little girls, as rose-tinted lenses inject new life into your spring wardrobe and add a playful element of femininity to your style.  Pair with a big sunhat and you’ll be ready for the races!

3.  Perfect Circle

These glasses are no longer just for Jackie O.  Oversized, retro, circle frames are the perfect balance of sophistication and fun.  Opt for a bold color-block frame and these peepers might just become your go-to pair.

 

Spring 2012’s Top Trends for Men

 

1.  Sporty

Gentlemen, embrace your inner athlete.  Fashion has entered the eyewear arena!  Take your classic aviators and wayfarers up a notch by donning a pair in bright colors or with mirrored lenses.

2.  Retro Styles

What makes hipsters such trend setters?  Obviously, their eyewear!  The retro look is back and this spec is reserved for the coolest kids on the block.  Chunky, plastic frames are for men looking to standout, while the Dan Humphries of the world may prefer the understated elegance of a rimless frame.  

3.  Rustic Sophistication

Manly men and sophisticated gents unite with these timeless specs.  Heavily influenced by leather and wood accents, these honey and amber tone frames bellow luxury only known to Ralph Lauren himself.  Grab a tortoise frame and pair with a polo and jeans for a warm Hamptons evening.

Consumer Electronics Show Highlights Glasses-free 3D

As is often the way with technology, it’s a grueling marathon in which gadgets at the cutting edge are continually being brushed into obsolescence. Just a couple of months ago, we covered a spate of companies make 3D fashion sunglasses and now the tech world is ready to take 3D glasses-free. Or are they?

A handful of companies at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show have been showcasing glasses-free 3D televisions and devices in hopes of overcoming consumer objections to the technology that made such a splash with Avatar, but garnered a bitter backlash as Hollywood execs attempted to force the feature on as many moviegoers as possible.

Electronics giants such as Sharp, LG, and Toshiba were hopeful of wooing consumers at this year’s CES in Las Vegas but some reviewers were highly underwhelmed. The website Consumerist was particularly critical of LG’s glasses free offering saying, “the company also had to put a white line in the carpet to show onlookers where to stand. And even then you must stand dead-center to get a semi-decent 3D effect.”

Many companies passed on bringing their 3D offerings to Sin City saying that while the technology might one day be found in a majority of living rooms, it’s still in too nascent a stage to be waggled in front of the gizmo-buying public.

Below is a video of Sony’s glasses-free 3D television. Admittedly much of the effect is lost on YouTube, but technophiles who can’t make it to Vegas can still dream, can’t they?

Winter Eyewear Trends 2010: Fashion Sunglasses

Just because the weather has gotten colder doesn’t mean that your eyes don’t still need protection from the sun’s UV rays. If you’re into winter sports like skiing or snowboarding, you might already have a pair of bulky snow goggles, but what about some everyday eyewear for the winter months? You might ask what makes winter sunglasses different from fashion sunglasses for summer? Boy, are you lucky we’re here to tell you.

Summer shades tend to have darker lenses than their winter counterparts. Though the sunlight in the winter has just as much UV content as always it tends to be grayer and more overcast, hence the lighter colored lenses. Another important factor to consider when buying sunglasses for winter is the changing light conditions and lower angles of light coming from the horizon. There’s also glare from below when sunlight reflects off of snow on the ground. As a result, it makes sense to buy winter sunglasses that fit closer to your face.

A final difference between winter and summer sunglasses is purely stylistic. In the summer, your wardrobe, and consequently your glasses, will likely be populated with a warmer color palette. For winter, earth tones and cool blues are the way to go.

The New Eyewear Trend That’s Sweeping Asia

It used to be that the most common place you would see a pair of glasses without lenses would be as part of a novelty disguise, attached to a fake plastic nose and a Groucho Marx-style moustache. But recently, in Taiwain, it’s becoming trendy among people in their teens and twenties to go lensless.

Some say this fashion began in the Japanese and Korean pop music scene, while others claim it originated in Taiwan. In either case, it’s giving young people, especially girls, yet another fashion accessory with which to deck out their wardrobe. In Taipei’s fashionable Ximen district, girls can often be seen with fake eyelashes extending out beyond their frames.

However, the look has unisex appeal, and guys can also be spotted with rims sans lenses. When the Huffington Post interviewed folks on the street, it found that many adherents of the trend actually need corrective eyewear and wear discrete contact lenses behind their feckless frames. Others said that they like the reduced weight of glasses without lenses and some people felt that they looked older or more mature with their fashion frames.

The trend is just starting to spread to China, which has been absorbing more elements of Taiwanese pop culture as diplomatic relations between the two countries have lost some of their edge. Will the fashion of empty eyeglass rims cross the Pacific Ocean and take root on American shores? Only time will tell.