How luxe streetwear is changing eyewear fashion
The trend is shifting from acetate to metals, rimless flat-lens-over-frame
With luxe streetwear continuing to influence luxury brands and streetwear designers taking over the creative helms of heritage brands—Vetements’ Demna Gvasalia at Balenciaga, Off-White’s Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton—and even Supreme’s James Jebbia taking home the prestigious CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year plum, fashion is poised to maintain fresher, edgier designs targeting a younger market.
This development in recent seasons takes fashion brands to a more modern direction, giving them “a unique selling point and an overall new feel that attracts customers,” says Neelam Gopwani, assistant vice president for marketing and business development at the family-owned Branded Lifestyle Inc. (BLI) and Eye Society Inc.
BLI is exclusive distributor and retailer of luxury eyewear in the Philippines, among them Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Miu Miu, Bulgari, Tiffany & Co., Giorgio Armani, Persol and RayBan.
Top-selling brand Ray-Ban’s popularity is owed—rather uniquely—not to fleeting trends but to its iconic styles, tweaked for updates time and again. Its somewhat populist styling also seems to benefit from the luxe streetwear phenomenon.
Evolving
“The brand is evolving into its new identity through these new styles and culture, and it definitely is an exciting time for us,” Gopwani says. In the Philippines, the Ray-Ban Aviator remains the bestseller.
For its Fall 2018 collection, Ray-Ban reaffirms its focus on its models in #IconsReinvented. For a fresh update, some of the models now feature sleek, rimless flat-lens-over-frame construc- tion (called Blaze in The General, Round and Clubmaster models).
The eyewear trend in the Asian market has also shifted from acetate to metals, not just in Ray-Ban but across all brands, Gopwani says.
Ray-Ban eyewear comes in sizes, though it doesn’t categorize its styles as men’s or women’s. With names such as The General, The Marshal, and The Colonel, the fall styles are distinctly masculine and quite in sync with the streetwear trend, notes Gopwani.
Men and women alike—including nonmillennials—are taking to the trend, she adds.
“For example, I love oversized eyewear, and The Marshal is my top choice because of its hexagonal shape and double bridge style,” she says. “It can jazz up any outfit, whether casual or dressy.”