Creatures of the Wind x State Optical Co.’s Sunglasses Work for Day

On the March day which Shane Gabier and Christopher Peters of Creatures of the Wind planned to celebrate the launch of their sunglasses collaboration with Chicago-based eyewear brand State Optical Co., a massive snowstorm hit New York City. Undeterred, they went ahead with the party anyway. That was kind of an appropriate gesture, since the influences that informed their designs were about wearing shades indoors; that punky, new wave era of the late ’70s and early ’80s when hipsters would party, party, party in nightclubs with dark glasses firmly affixed to their faces—Joy Division’s Ian Curtis, Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh, and queen of the kitschy cat-eye Debbie Harry of Blondie.
                                           

“When we were researching this collaboration, we looked at our heroes and icons from that period,” says Peters, “though we didn’t want the shapes to look retro. We tweaked them so they didn’t look too recognizable or so specific.” The four styles are rendered in tortoiseshell, red, black, and green acetate, and vary from the aforementioned elongated feline look to a weightier square style that does indeed refract the past through the (sorry!) lens of today. “They all have this glam component to them,” says Gabier. “I wouldn’t say they were gender neutral, but they’re playful in that regard.”

The styles are named after Chicago addresses—both Creatures and State spring from the city. (There’s the Monitor, the Tripp, the Leland, and the Neenah.) The process involved Gabier and Peters making a couple of trips to State’s ateliers, located in a northern suburb, where they could meet with the company’s technicians. Those trips back to where they first started likely only added to the ongoing reflection they’ve been experiencing on what they want their label to be, given their announcement to move to a more project-based approach. They’re happy to be (somewhat) stepping out of the fashion rat race.

The Julbo Chams Are My New Favorite Sunglasses

Flying home from a ski trip a few weeks ago, I put my keychain, wallet, and sunglasses in the dog dish, then sent them down the conveyor belt into the bowels of the TSA X-ray machine. When the dish came out the other side, the glasses were gone. I begged, cajoled, and attempted to bribe the agents to find them. I even offered my incredibly bright FourSevens Mini Mk2 to aid in the efforts. But they were gone, eaten by bureaucracy.
                                               

I was distraught. Not only were they my favorite glasses of all time—the Aether Explorers—but this was my third pair, after breaking one (well, Wiley broke them) and losing the other while paddling the Sea of Cortez. At $600 a pair, I couldn’t justify a fourth.

After a suitable period of self loathing, I set out to find a replacement. I’d fallen in love with the Aether’s glare-blocking side shields, their incredibly clear Zeiss glass lenses, and the light weight. So I knew I wanted similar features, just in a much more affordable package.

Julbo remains an independent brand based out of Chamonix, France. I liked its history, and the functionality and quality of its products, but otherwise excellent products like the Explorer 2.0 just look a little too Dame Edna for my taste. The leather shields on the Vermont had always appealed, but the round lenses gave them a mad scientist air I wasn’t sure I could pull off. They also came only with extremely dark lenses designed to cut the brightness of high-altitude snow and ice, which means they’re too dark for most mundane situations, like driving my truck.

How do glasses help you see?

You’ve asked this at a very good time because more and more people are needing to wear glasses, including young children, and we don’t really know why.
                                                 

Our eyes let us see because light enters each eye, and the eye then creates a message that goes to the brain.

The eyeball itself doesn’t actually “see” – the brain sees. The eyeballs just take pictures, like two little cameras. To see properly, each eyeball needs to send the light that enters it onto a very exact spot inside the eyeball, called the retina. If the light falls onto the wrong place, your vision will be blurry.

Many people don’t need glasses and can see just fine. This is because their eyeballs are focusing light properly onto the retina.

However, some people have eyeballs that are too long. They are called “shortsighted”. For these people, things far away, like street signs or the classroom blackboard, can look blurry.

Other people have eyeballs that are too short. They are called “farsighted” and things close to them, like a book or a mobile phone, can look blurry.

Both shortsighted and farsighted people need glasses to help them see clearly.

They work by helping the eyeball to focus light onto the correct place, the retina. Only then can the eye see clearly.

Maybe you have a grandma or grandpa who wears glasses whenever they are reading books or using their mobile phone. When people get older, they usually become a little bit farsighted because a part of their eye called the lens becomes stiff and doesn’t work properly.

More and more young people in the world are needing to wear glasses.

We’re not sure why, but some scientists think that children who spend too much time inside are more likely to need glasses. We don’t know if it’s because they aren’t getting enough sunlight or if they’re simply reading too much or playing too many video games when they get home.

Oakley EVZero Range vs. Smith Optics Attack Max sunglass review

One could be forgiven for thinking the Smith Optics Attack Max and Oakley EVZero Range were penned by the same designer. Although they’ve obviously not identical, both use a frameless design and a large-format lens with a raised center for maximum coverage. And just as Oakley does with its Prizm lens technology, Smith Optics claims its ChromaPop lens tints provide better color clarity and detail definition than a more conventional lens.
                                           

On the bike, both provide similarly expansive fields of view, along with superb protection from flying debris, wind, and rain. I could barely see the edges of the lens on either set, and even at 80km/h, my eyes didn’t water from wind irritation. Both sunglasses are fantastically lightweight — 32g for the Attack Max, the EVZero Range even lighter at just 23g — and combined with the similarly gentle fit on my relatively narrow head, it doesn’t take long to forget that you’re wearing them at all.

But there’s no getting around the fact that Oakley only offers the road cycling-specific Prizm lens in a single version, and as good as it is most of the time, the 20% light transmission rating isn’t going to work all the time. Here in the high-altitude sunshine of the Colorado Rockies, for example, Prizm sometimes just isn’t as dark as I’d like. There’s still the same awesome level of contrast, but almost too much of it — sort of like a top-shelf sound system that’s turned up a little too loud.

Oakley may offer the EVZero in versions to suit nearly any lighting condition (and don’t forget those five different lens shapes), but the lenses can’t be swapped after the fact since the temples are permanently fixed in place. The Attack Max, on the other hand, has a clever magnetic clasp setup that still allows for a frameless design, but also the ability to change lenses at will. The standard ChromaPop Sun Red Mirror lens of my test set is noticeably better in bright sunlight with its darker 15% transmission rating, and Smith Optics further hammers the point home by also including a ChromaPop Contrast Rose lens with a much lighter 48% tint that works well in lower-light conditions.

State Optical takes aim at Warby Parker with Chicago-branded glasses made in the USA

A Chicago start-up wants to ride the trendy eye-wear movement — with luxury spectacles designed and assembled in the U.S.A.
                                           

State Optical, co-founded by Scott Shapiro, Jerry Wolowicz, Marc Franchi and Jason Stanley, launched in early 2016 to tap into what they saw as a growing demand for domestic products.

Smartly dressed with a pair of his own State frames in gray, Shapiro said the company set up in Chicago to tell an authentic brand story. The brand heavily promotes the city's iconography, and features the Chicago skyline on its presentation boxes.

Indeed, frame designs are all named after streets in Chicago, such as Armitage and Ravenswood. Each frame has 21 precision drilled holes set in the temples, a homage to Illinois being the 21st state of America.

While some of the materials are still sourced from overseas (Italian acetate and hinges from Germany), all the manufacturing is done in the U.S.

According to Shapiro, that created some difficulties: Many American craftsmen had not seen a frame being made before. "Fundamentally it's going to be more difficult and expensive to manufacture in the U.S.," said Shapiro. "The cost of labor is higher even now between the U.S. and China."

Still, Shapiro insisted domestic manufacturing gives State an advantage in the quality of its eyewear. By producing the frames in the U.S., Shapiro said, the company can spot quality or production issues and correct them early.