Interview: l.a.Eyeworks

L.A.EYEWORKSINTERVIEW

GAI GHERARDI

TEXT:

MAARTEN WEIDEMA In the eyewear industry, the name Gai is a true institution and needs little introduction, but describe yourself to us briefly, and more importantly, do you have pets or are your glasses your babies? Thanks for the compliment, but darn it, I was just trying to disrupt the institution and not become part of it! No kidding, I am an epicurean and have never lost my curiosity about the world. I grew up largely in the seaside town of Huntington Beach, where Barbara and I became best friends in high school before we began our journey as opticians. These days, I live happily with Rhonda, my partner for life, and I have five California desert tortoises, three of which I hatched from the eggs of my two elders whom I adopted over 35 years ago. You know we love names at l.a.Eyeworks, and they are Curly, Blanca, Box Car, Jumby and Millicent.

How funny!!! I know a few of those models yes, but wasn't aware they were named after your turtles.

l.a.Eyeworks is a real family business, almost a tribe. Can you tell us how that is part of the brand identity and how it has helped you grow? The old thinking was "never hire your family and friends" and ours was "always hire your family and friends!" Trying to separate business and lives just didn't work for us as a construct. But there are many layers to building a sense of kinship. l.a.Eyeworks attracts like-minded people to its doors more often than not because of the sensitivity of our mission. Home is a place where you can feel safe to be your true self without judgement, and we've done our best to provide that feeling of safety, both for our clients and for all the amazing l.a.Eyeworkers who have made us what we are today over the

the venue. It is the heart of l.a.Eyeworks in so many ways and we lovingly call it the 'mother ship' because it has given us everything!

years. Moreover, it is our daily practice to enjoy the ridiculous and the absurd - and no one wants to leave a fun party, right?

Your first creations were existing ugly frames, which you adapted in order to offer the public something unique. Can you tell us something about this time and how people reacted to it? Hahaha! Maybe they were ugly in the context of what was considered 'fashion eyewear' in 1979, and that's exactly what we reacted against. We were done with oversized, oversized, logo-laden, gender-specific, boring-coloured eyewear! We turned to our penchant for archetypes to start a new conversation - think glasses by Shuron, Gaspari, AO, and the health insurance company. We brought them to the present by painting, milling and sandblasting them, along with the addition of beautiful lenses. Our modifications made the frames gender-neutral. The idea of giving a man and a woman the same frames and seeing a transformation on both was so liberating. Barbara might say that we forced our sensibility to exist, but I think we also discovered that people were starving for a paradigm shift.

Can you tell us about your first shop on Melrose Avenue? Is that still the same location as now? Yes, we still have our original shop at 7407 Melrose Avenue. I think that building deserves a historical plaque right now! When we opened in 1979, the street was mostly occupied by furniture repair shops and electronics suppliers. But the rent was cheap and for some reason it just felt right. Little did we know that over the next decade Melrose would become the equivalent of Kings Road as the epicentre of West Coast punk and new wave music, fashion and culture. As the street gained international fame, our shop became a crossroads for so many different and wonderful people. And I have to say that one of the great things about that time is that it felt like an awakening of sorts, where everyone was doing what everyone else was doing and supporting it. The popularity of Melrose has gone down and up over the years, but we continue to love If I'm ever in LA I'll definitely walk in there to see if that feeling is still there. Is it still like before? Very much so, because our customers remain dedicated and curious about our perspective. And let's face it, with some of our customers we go back three, sometimes four and probably five generations. We have built a deep trust with people that what we offer is given with genuine encouragement.... and most likely a punch line of course.

Can you tell me about the project you are most most proud of and why. Barbara and I wanted to be of service to people, and the glasses became the medium through which we could work toward that mission. l.a.Eyeworks is our way of giving ourselves so we can share that gift with others.

You have "framed" some of the biggest names in Hollywood, can you give away some names? Of course, but I have to say that celebrities are not an end game for us. Many people we consider to be celebrities - heroes, in fact - are not in the public eye. They are architects, chefs, civil rights advocates, costume designers, and so on. If you really want to get us excited, send then just send the nerdy book reviewer from the local public radio station whose dry wit and passion for literature we adore. That said, we have been honored to collaborate with more than a host of iconic people, including Elizabeth Taylor, Miles Davis, Tina Turner, Cher, Divine, David Hockney, Isaac Julien, Bette Midler, Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Tilda Swinton, RuPaul, Ariana Grande and of course Sir Elton John who has shown such support and enthusiasm for our work.

Out of that list of names, was there a special person or passing that really stood out? There are so many moments that seemed to be "business as usual" at the time that have become dear and meaningful in retrospect. It was always great fun chatting with Carrie Fisher, and I remember the day she put a manuscript on the counter and asked me what I thought of the title that she had come up with for her book: 'Postcards from the Edge'. When did you start creating your own line of eyewear and how did that come about? Like many other stories in retail and design, when we couldn't find what we wanted to sell, we decided to make one ourselves. Around 1980-81 we we found out where the factories were in the Jura region of France and we made our first drawing, flew to Europe and knocked on the door of a factory.

This year l.a.Eyeworks turned 40, congratulations! Do you still get the same kick out of it when it comes to design and running the stores? 42 years actually (and we're already dreaming about 50, at the very least!). Although I don't run the stores like I used to, I still run them creatively, and our original store on Melrose is a special and stimulating touchstone to this day. My father built the u-shaped sales counter that is still there, and every time I set foot in the store, the amount of energy is the same as it was on day one. The possibilities still seem endless.

What is the most enjoyable part of your job? The unsurpassable thrill of making something and seeing it worn, worn and worn, by someone years later. Even the abstract idea of someone living their life and seeing what they see in something I made is still incredibly moving. This is why I always say that I have the most incredible gig in the world in front of me.

In those 42 years, you must have designed a lot of styles. Is there any eyewear design that is still your favorite? When you've created so many designs, it's almost impossible to pick a favorite. But the one that often comes to mind first is BURBANK.

Yes!!! that was a great design, and its time also so far ahead of its time! How do you come up with such a cool design? Does it start with a face, a personality, an architectural shape? It's like a swell in the ocean that gathers to form a wave, and for me that wave is made of all those things: faces, music, the way a dog walks, an angle of light, a dance movement, the colors of donuts , street fashion and so on.

"EVEN THE ABSTRACT IDEA OF SOMEONE LIVING THEIR LIFE AND SEEING WHAT THEY SEE IN SOMETHING I MADE IS STILL INCREDIBLY MOVING."

Do you still design all the frames yourself, or do you have a team helping you? I still design all the frames, and still with an analogue pencil in my hand.

You work mainly with acetate, why? Because the possibilities for expressive colours are so great!

For me, l.a.Eyeworks is all about colour. Do you have a favourite? My guess is red or pink. Elvis Costello has a song called "How Deep is the Red", and indeed, red is a powerful and memorable marker that Barbara and I love (on the other hand, we have a long-running affair with yellow).

L.A.EYEWORKS

But despite your colourful collections, your famous ads are all in black and white. Why is that? The campaign was created to show how glasses can enhance the unique beauty of each face. Making the portraits in black and white was a playful way of taking the idea of the glamorous Hollywood headshot and turning it around by showing outrageous creatures like Divine, Nina Hagen and Iggy Pop. In the same way that our frame designs did not require the approval of fashion or trend, we wanted to interrogate common perceptions of attractiveness, fame and style. Interestingly, four decades later, we have discovered that Greg Gorman's incredible mastery of black and white photography has given each portrait a sublime kind of timelessness.

You recently launched a new brand called Fiction, can you tell us anything about it? What can we expect to see? Since its launch in spring 2019, FICTION has been a very interesting experiment to build and develop a collection based on a construction paradigm with a unique hinge-and-spring configuration, on which multiple material variations, from sophisticated to graphic, can be hung.

You are a member of Eyewear Designers of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (edCFDA) along with some great designers and friends of both of us, like Selima, Blake and Christian. What does that entail and what is your common goal? I love being part of this group of amazing talents, and yes, best friends. The edCFDA was founded with ambitious ideas in mind. Firstly, we want to elevate eyewear design to its own desirable and noteworthy category in the mainstream fashion dialogue. Secondly, we want to cash in on the substantial imprimatur of the CFDA for the benefit of the optical industry. Finally, we want the edCFDA to function as an incubator and promoter of emerging talent in eyewear design.

What do you do when you're not working? Play! By that I mean travelling, looking at art, seeing as much live music and performances as possible. And then I feel like a fish in water!

Yes, music and performances are what I miss the most in this strange period, let's hope that will be possible again soon and we can see each other again to enjoy you and your beautiful designs!