Fire sunglasses shortlist
Fire sunglasses shortlist
The hunt to protect your retinae & frame the d*mn grill FELICITOUSLY
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— Jonah & Erin
Hope everyone had a profound experience of yesterday’s eclipse, whether you were in the “path of totality” or … totally off on your own path !!
Appropriately, today’s Spyplane is solar themed. But first, a warning:
⚠️ This sletter contains a graphic description of DOPE SUNGLASSES dying an EMBARRASSING DEATH ⚠️
Erin was screaming “noooooo!!!!”
But it was too late. Lowering myself into the Spyplane Whip the other day, I felt a sickening crunch beneath me. Yes — I’d sat down on my own sunglasses, which I’d left lying on the driver’s seat like a d*mn jerk.
I inspected the damage. One of the two hinges where temple arm meets rims was bent at a severe angle. The other hinge?? Snapped off altogether. Mamma mia, had I done my brothers dirty.
Now here’s the thing. As you know if you read Blackbird Spyplane profundities on the reg, my thoughts emerge from an enormous & craggy brain. Ipso facto, the skull that containeth my brain is mad oversize, too. And I’ll be d*mned if I don’t have some big beautiful friendly-a** facial features to cap everything off.
All of which means that finding sunglasses that I feel & look good wearing is a challenge for me. Maybe everybody feels some version of this, but my “cranial & facial tolerances” strike me as especially choosy when it comes to eyewear. If the shades are too small, my big face looks… even bigger. If the shades are too round, my whole s**t starts looking swirlingly, concentrically… over-globular. If the frames are too angular then my whole s**t starts looking … like a jarring contradiction in terms!!
Glasses and shades are some of the most potent appearance-modifying jawns we can rock, in no small part because the face signifies with exponentially increased amplitude vs. the rest of the body. Kind of like how if you were to move a tattoo that reads as chill on your bicep up to your cheek: It would suddenly speak at ~100x volume.
And so, when I first tried on a pair of Saint Laurent SL28s a decade ago, it was revelatory. I’d previously rocked Wayfarers and other joints in that general idiom: Vuarnet 006s, Oakley Frogskins. The SL28s resembled those frames, but a bit sleeker, a bit softer, and more than a bit doper. Some jawns I get restless about and tired of, but these? I happily locked in then and there as a “shades monogamist.” I have worn this model of sunglasses for 10 years.
Jump cut to the other day… and your boy beholding his mangled frames. There were no two ways about it: This s**t was tragic.
And yet — what if it was in fact a sign that I should try and switch up my style… Hunt down some new beauties… Reconsider the shape I’ve been FESTOONING my grill with… In other words, what if this was “jawnpportunity” knocking!?
Mmmaybe a glasses place can just repair the broken frames (looking at the bent-and-snapped hardware, I’m dubious). I could also just cop another pair of SL28s. Although where my mind goes on that score is they weren’t exactly cheap to begin with & the price has only risen in the years since I first copped.
What’s more, I can’t help but feel that, as beautiful as the SL28s are, I risk paying a chump tax / dork’s premium for the “luxury” name engraved on the side…
Maybe I can find some frames from a maker doing cool s**t further off the beaten path, in a more “small-batch” Spyplaney register?
The more I consider the angles, the more a new pair of sunglasses seems like it might be in my near future.
Before I cop anything I’m gonna look back through the many bangers we called out in our 2022 Sunglasses Report, and see what sings.
But right now, here is my short list, collaged above, all from lines you should have on your radar if you don’t already!! (I’m happy to lengthen it as new slappers emerge in the comments too.)
A. Lowercase — made in Brooklyn from Italian acetate, with Carl Zeiss lenses, this model is the “Ashe.” As pictured above, I tried these on at Oakland’s own Standard & Strange, who carry several Lowercase styles. They’re really nice, though I’d have to make peace with a slightly chunkier shape than I’m used to.