If you are bored of the same rectangular shaped frames which have dominated eyewear shop windows in the past five years and if you are after a more personal look, a style you feel is your own, Arckiv is the place you are looking for.
It's not easy to find in the jungle of the Camden's Stables Market, but, once you are there, it's hard to walk out bare handed. It took me an hour and a half to choose thirty pairs of glasses and a further painful selection process to narrow it down to two pieces which I eventually bought.
Rather than a shop it's an emporium.
Walking in, the first thing that catches the eyes is the quantity of glasses in display, hundreds of frames on shelves and glass drawers, with models that range from the 1940 to 1989. Collectors and antique lovers can find glasses dated back to the 1800.
Arckiv sources, provides and hires eye wear as props to well-known opera theatres including the Royal Opera House, London's English National Opera and the Gran Teatre de Liceu in Barcelona. Movie lovers will be interested to know that the spectacles worn by Johnny Depp in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” were a prototype which Fraser Laing, founder of Arckiv, designed for Tim Burton, as well as the 1970s styled glasses featured in Steven Spielberg's Munich.
“Five years ago I bought up archives, prototypes and catalogues from eyewear factories which had been closed down when production was moved to China. I have no idea how many I have, I sell some, I collect others as I am deeply interested in the culture of glasses and the history and knowledge they bear” Fraser explains.
The most wanted model? “The NHS 524, the National Health Service glasses. This model dates back in the 1950 and it was produced until 1990. The design is incredible, looks good and people still wear it today.”
In London the passion for this accessory has become so extreme that in fashionable areas is not unusual to see people wearing vintage frames with no lenses: spectacles, just like handbags, have become the ultimate true bulwark of the freedom of expression.
Maria Vittoria Burlina
Maria Vittoria Burlina Lives in London since 2005 where she works as a producer in digital media. She has always been into this kind of staff. In her "previous lives" she worked as a journalist at "Il Gazzettino di Treviso" and as Ad account manager. She loves Doctor Martens, she has wears them, since 20 years back, (not the same pair though!) black, talking about politics, bicycles and food, but don't ask her to cook. She is a friend of us.
visit Maria Vittoria's blog: http://lequilibrista.tumblr.com/
http://treviso.xcitta.it
of Maria Vittoria Burlina - Sunday, April 11th
Pictures: Thomas W. Jenning
