Marie Wilkinson, Head of Design at luxury eyewear brand Cutler and Gross, explains the inspiration behind the new Fall/Winter 2015 collection, Circus
What inspired the collection?
It came from the unique combination of glamour, showmanship and high level of skill developed by the performers. It brought to mind all the elements of Cutler and Gross, from Mr Gross’s quotation that we live by: ‘People who wear glasses should not feel separated from glamour’, to celebrating the recent expansion of the Cutler and Gross factory in the Italian Dolomites. Each of our highly skilled technicians leave something of themselves in the glasses they make.
What was involved in the design and production?
Each collection brings the design and technical teams ever closer, with each team informing the other. The collection is conceived and designed in London and produced by our technicians in Italy. Each frame undergoes 43 individual processes and takes between four and five weeks to make.
At the core of our process is the tradition of hand-making acetate frames from sheets of extruded cotton-based Italian acetate and each frame front is individually cut on specially adapted CNC machines. From here the process of drilling and fitting hinges is carried out by hand. Metal increasingly becomes part of our remit and allows a freedom to make frames lighter in weight and in a greater range of colours.
Each of the new designs were inspired by a performer in the circus, like the Harlequin, interpreted in an elegant optical frame, half in metal and half in a typical graphic acetate. The model 1182 we called Trapeze (pictured above) whereby we adapted the milling lines to cut the acetate in a dynamic sweeping manner that mimics the sweep of the trapeze flying through the air and in turn creates a glamorous upswept detail. The ruby glitter acetate is inspired by the sparkle of sequined costumes worn for each performance. The model 1176, is named for the Ringmaster (pictured below) and this authoritative style reigns over the collection, bringing together metal and acetate in an apparently seamless piece belying it’s technical sophistication.
Any challenges?
We wanted to imbue the same delicate contour lines to our metal frames that exist in the handmade acetate frames, and so rather than use the traditional method of soldering rim wire, we have developed a way to mill sheets of steel on a CNC machine in the same way as we mill sheets of acetate. The 1178, named for the Clown because of if its exaggerated eye shape, the 1179, the Balloon and 1124, the Aphrodite, named for a daring bareback rider, embody this new method and become seamless in design.
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