The Last Lolita, a pair of thick-rimmed, cat-eye sunglasses, reenergized business at Le Specs, an Australian eyewear brand. The popular style, which was designed by Adam Selman in 2016 — his partnership with the brand has been extended to 2020 — was a hit with women like Rihanna and Gigi Hadid and changed the course of Le Specs’ trajectory. The sunglasses, which retail for around $120, have produced waiting lists and high resale prices.
The brand is capitalizing on that success by launching Le Specs Optical, a line of eyeglasses for men and women that’s designed by well-known eyewear designer Blake Kuwahara, who creates his own collection and has led eyewear design for brands including Carolina Herrera and John Varvatos.
“Blake is someone who I really admired for his unique approach to design with his namesake collection,” said Hamish Tame, Le Specs’ design director. “He was also someone who we knew we could trust with his expertise in creating an optical that didn’t compromise on quality or detail.”
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The assortment, which launches this week, includes 23 styles, 72 pieces and will be sold at Net-a-porter and Matchesfashion.com along with independent optometrists, which is a new channel for the brand. Le Specs has built a following for its bold, moderately priced styles and Kuwahara brought that to the optical collection.
“It was really important for us to create an optical collection from scratch ensuring that they were designed as optical pieces, and not optical versions of our sunglass collection,” Tame said. “There are a few stylistic nods to some iconic Le Specs sunglass looks.”
Le Specs was founded in 1979 by Australis, a cosmetics and makeup company based in Australia, and was meant to be merchandised with its product. After they stopped investing in the line, Sunshades, an Australian eyewear distributor that also produces and distributes eyewear for Karen Walker, acquired the license for Le Specs in 2005.