ARTISTIC VISION
DECORATIVE BUT UNDERSTATED, KATA EYEWEAR IS THE HOTTEST LINE AROUND.
Byline: Bonnie McAllister
LOS ANGELES — Hindsight is 20/20 and Kata Eyewear designer Blake Kuwahara, 37, should know. Looking back, it seems his current status as a widely popular, jet-setting designer with a Sausalito, Calif., studio overlooking San Francisco Bay is exactly what life had in store for him all along.
His mother always wanted him to be a doctor. “Prenatally, [she] put doctor before my name to make sure it sounded right.”
Kuwahara found himself drawn to optometry and interior design. Upon graduating Phi Beta Kappa from UCLA with a degree in psychobiology, the California native had to make a choice: Accept a position at an interior-design firm or go for the doctorate at the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Optometry.
As fate would have it, he chose the latter. Dr. Kuwahara operated a private practice for three years in Southern California’s trendy Manhattan Beach community. Then one day he answered a classified ad for a forecast stylist with experience in the optical industry, and it changed his life.
“I sent out my resume and they laughed,” he remembers. “They said this is an entry-level position, and you’re a doctor.”
Finally, the overqualified Kuwahara convinced Dick Haft, president of Wilshire Designs [which holds the license for Liz Claiborne Eyewear] that he was serious.
In 1990, he was hired by the firm as vice president of product development.
He admits it was a trial by fire. “The biggest lesson I learned initially was proportion and sizing, because what looks good on paper may not work on a face. The very first pair of glasses I made were completely off and would have barely fit a child,” he added.
But Kuwahara was a quick study, and in 1992 Haft gave him the green light to design a collection of prescription eyeglasses with optional tinted lenses under his own label, Kata — a Japanese phrase meaning shape and form — Eyewear.
“At the time, I felt there was a need in the marketplace for eyewear that was artful because it was at a point [in the industry] where wacky, obtuse designs were just being slapped with designer labels,” he said.
One year later, they established Eyeota to market and distribute Kata as well as the licensed Hanae Mori Paris Lunettes line.
The collection was named I.D. Magazine’s “Best of Category in Consumer products” in 1995.
However it is the validation of his clientele that Kuwahara seeks most. And with $10 million in annual sales and a client list that reads like an Oscar party A-list — John Travolta, Alicia Silverstone, Ben Affleck, Minnie Driver, Noah Wylie, Woody Harrelson, Peter Fonda, Robert Redford, Robin Williams and Winona Ryder, among others — he seems to have it.
“At first it was really frustrating, because everyone wanted to know who wore my glasses,” said Kuwahara, “and I thought, who cares? Does it really matter?”
Now, however, he not only enjoys seeing his frames on famous faces but he realizes these are customers who can afford to wear whatever they want, “and they choose to wear ours. That’s a big thrill.”
It is a look that doesn’t come cheap. The eyewear and a new Kata Sunwear line retail at stores like Takashimaya, Barneys and Saks Fifth Avenue for approximately $350.
“There is a market out there for high-end luxury glasses,” said Kuwahara. “Consumers will spend thousands on a handbag, or hundreds on a pair of shoes, so why not eyewear?”
The value behind the tag comes from FDA-approved high-end materials, handmade production in Japan and innovative design. Kuwahara credits 3-D styling and a “tactile” approach to design with setting his collection apart from the rest.
Kata is defined by three distinct groups, Gaia, meaning Greek goddess of nature; Ethos, inspired by movement and aerodynamics, and Tribal, a product of modern urban influences. “When I decided to come up with the concept of eyewear, I didn’t want a single theme,” said Kuwahara.
“I wanted to take simple things from nature that we see every day and put them into a completely different context.”
As a result, twigs, bamboo, leaves, stones and seashells detail the Gaia group; plastic and metal are sculpted into the industrial Ethos group and suggestions of body piercing, tattoos and Gothic motifs make up the Tribal theme.
Still, Kuwahara strives to make all of the glasses wearable.
“I like to use the temples as the place to show design,” he said. “It’s a little easier to wear if it’s on the side of the frame rather than on the front.”
In the past, he said, eyewear used colors or big, funky shaped frames, but this designing doctor doesn’t advise it.
“My intent is to bring a sense of artfulness and hand-craftsmanship to my designs. “Eyewear should enhance and be an extension of one’s personality — not be a substitute for one.”