EYEWEAR MY SUNGLASSES AT NIGHT
my obsession with sunglasses
by manuela antakly
Cover photo designer Zahide Batul Sahin.
I’ve had a thing for eyewear my whole life. Ever since I could crawl I used to go over to my mom’s sunglasses box and try on all her glasses. Never did I know it would lead to a full time career working with Rayban, Oliver People’s and Persol. Before that I worked for Ilori which houses 80% of all brands including Chanel, Tom Ford, Valentino, Dolce, Prada, and Miu Miu.
Some people have an addiction for bags and shoes, mine are sunglasses. I dress according to what sunglasses I feel like wearing and see them as an extension of my personality. When my sister asked me to write a piece on this little addiction, I was overwhelmed, cause there are just too many styles, and brands to list, so I decided to make this more of a visual collage of some of the most inspiring looks. For me sunglasses, like clothing are a form of expression, of style and mood. Oh and seeing the outdoors with a pair of amazing polarized lenses is a total game changer.
Some of my favourite brands include:
Zahide Batul Sahin
I really love this collaboration GENTLE MONSTER x FENDI
The internet is going crazy for this brand created by Aggie Nam, GODSOMEWARE .
When did you start creating sunglasses?
It was around 2017 when I saw Jzhong's flaming shades on Instagram and I immediately fell in love with them. I literally had my alarm set to buy the meteor glasses and it was sold out so fast. So I decided to make my own version of it and I made a thunder shaped glasses. At that time, I had about 100 followers and just decided to start sharing some of my drawings on my Instagram account.
Here The Cut featured 50 of the top iconic glasses of all time.