MAN of the PEOPLES
Larry Leight, optician to the stars, explains that the secret to timeless frames is making sure they don’t feature a logo
Given its proximity to the centre of the Los Angeles studio universe, old movies are an influence on Oliver Peoples creative director Larry Leight, but “we go further afield,” he says. Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Please. That’s almost too obvious. Instead, try the Mande — an oversized pair of sunglasses inspired by ones worn by Catherine Deneuve in the 1968 film Manon 70, a movie also memorable for her chic Emanuel Ungaro wardrobe.
I quiz Leight about famous frames both on- and offscreen — like Pierce Brosnan as Bond (he wore his own Oliver Peoples in the last one), Aristotle Onassis (“the original Onassis was a Persol frame”) and the oft-claimed Jackie O, for whose Capri-era goggles I’ve heard at least five different heritage brands claim ownership (“hers are a bit more difficult, but one was a Nina Ricci, for sure”).
Leight answers easily because he’s the L.A. optician who co-founded Oliver Peoples with his brother Dennis in 1986 with a single store on West Sunset. On this particular day, for an afternoon at Holt Renfrew to meet customers and help them pick frames, Leight is wearing The Soloist, from the brand’s collaboration with cult underground Japanese designer Takahiro Miyashita.
At first glance the frame is a typical aviator, but there are modifications to give it a twist: vintage parts are incorporated, like a brow bar. Iconic eyewear shapes — horn rims, cat’s eyes and aviators — have been the core of the brand throughout its 25 years and have surged in recent years. “The recession has been about basics,” Leight explains, “more classics. People aren’t going to splurge on tons of frames,” which is why he thinks that even through the recession, business kept going “pretty good.”
“People know they’re getting something that will last. Not just the [acetate] quality but our styles, too, are more timelesstype styles than typical licensed brands that do season by season by season and big-time reinvent the wheel every time. With us, we tend to want to like things longer and a lot of our designs are timeless.
“We also seem to design a lot of frames that people like to use for films because they don’t have a period around it. Take Johnny Depp, who wears our Sheldrake,” he says. “And you can’t date the film or the glasses. That’s part of our culture, that’s how we design frames. We don’t do logos, which can date, either. We don’t do superrecognizable things that put a period on it. People aspire to things like that now — the anonymity of a brand.
“We’ve also tried to maintain a name that people can hold on to,” Leight continues. “At this stage, 25 years later, it’s a trust in the name and brand. Owning it is kind of like owning a Rolex, that’s what we want to think.”
Leight, a born and bred Angeleno, feels a strong connection to Hollywood culture. That might mean supplying Robert Evans with pairs in his signature medium tint or sharing in an historic Hollywood eyewear moment that dates to even before Oliver Peoples was founded. Recently, the brand worked with Tony Peck (a son of actor Gregory Peck) and a long-time customer. “He comes into the store all the time and a couple of years ago, at the anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird, he mentioned that he had the original frames, the very pair of glasses [Peck] wore in the movie.” They duplicated both frame and colour, with profits going to a charitable foundation. “People love that nostalgia,” he says of the rounded retro specs, “and that there’s no logo.”
Peoples frames are so beloved by Hollywood types in their civilian life, they occasionally make their way onto the big screen — in movies such as Hannibal, the Wall Street sequel, or the crystal frame with yellow lenses framing Uma Thurman’s revenge in Kill Bill. But the brand’s elevator pitch, as it were, remains the O’Malleys, worn in American Psycho by Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman. “It changed the way men dressed and the way they looked at their outfits. That was the beginning for us,” Leight recalls. Is creator Bret Easton Ellis comped for life, then? “Stylists for the movie came in and we didn’t even pay attention, they just bought them,” Leight jokes. “Now people refer to it even more so than back then.”
“There’s less chance of that happening. It’s all set up now,” he adds. “That’s a little bit sad, really. We don’t pay for placement. So many people have got their hands in it. The freedom of that, the serendipity. I can’t think of a single film lately where it has happened organically like that.”
The company doesn’t advertise — with paid film placement, logos or with magazine ad campaigns — but that doesn’t mean it isn’t savvy about marketing. “We like doing a little short film instead,” Leight explains.
The summer Oliver Peoples collection headline a new short film called Float directed by Lisa Eisner, modelled by actors that include next-gen Hollywood boldface Dakota Johnson (daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith, and granddaughter of Hitchcock muse Tippi Hendren). There’s a message beyond starlet-gazing in the medium, however. “We wanted to find a way to have a campaign that showed more than just one frame in a onepage ad, more of the collection and how people could wear it in different scenarios.”
This strategy is in sharp contrast to Oliver Peoples’ siblings in behemoth parent company Oakley’s portfolio, such as Prada and Miu Miu. “Those ads are one frame, one image for the season,” Leight says.
Leight’s is an academic household (his father-inlaw is Pulitzer-winning poet N. Scott Momaday) and the creative director says inspiration strikes everywhere — from the image in a few lines of poetry to a sprawling car show. “I was blown away by details like the thicknesses, the rims, it made me want to make it as eyewear,” he recalls of the latter recent excursion. The matte chrome vibe translated into a new men’s aviator frame called Copter, done in brushed metal. “To me metal felt like it belonged sitting on the dashboard of a Maserati more than a plastic frame did. Or a little sporty Carrera. It’s a steel rim thing, ribbed, that looks like it’s built to last.”