CASSIUS ® Blog

December 3, 2009

Cassius Eyewear at DNA Magazine

This is so random, and for the record it isn't an actual Cassius Eyewear campaign, but I can appreciate how Pedro Virgil's photography would appeal to DNA's gay-male demographic–any press is good press. [Image via DNA magazine website.]

Thanks for bringing it to our attention Damien.

Pilot Issue #3. Looking good Andy!

Hawt! Advance copies of publisher Andy Pickering's Pilot Issue #3, are available from 3pm today at selected stockists; Fabric High St, Keith Matheson and Mag Nation. Pilot will be available nationwide from next week.

I can tell you now, that for Pilot Issue #3, Cassius Eyewear commissioned a series of illustrations by one of my favorite artist/ illustrator and ELAM graduate, Aleksandra Petrovic. Petrovic's signature 'Brother's Grimm'-style illustrations, entitled 'The Boy & The Sun Chaser' are a series of 6 hand-rendered drawings depicting giants, mannequins, shipwrecks, young men, and the search for Cassius Eyewear.

If you want to see more then you'd better get your hands on a copy of Pilot...

Studio Hideki, another satisfied customer

"Cassius Eyewear Seidler edition arrived in the post today. Very sexy glasses. Love the fact all the ranges are named after architects. Have been blogged everywhere. Not available in the UK yet, so feel honoured to be one of the lucky few on these shores to be sporting them. Lovely packaging too." –Rich Mills, Studio Hideki.

Say 'hello' to Rich Mills of Studio Hideki. Studio Hideki is a London-based product-design facility who's clients include Bang & Olufsen, Bowers & Wilkins, Cobra Beer, HTC, MoMA, Nokia, Spotify and Vertu. Other projects include collaborations with artist/ illustrator Hellovon; designs for Guernica shelving, In Dust We Trust installation, La Luna desktop fan, The Suicide Bath and Valencia dual-use tableware.

Check them out, very clever stuff.

December 2, 2009

Cassius Eyewear in Remix #64: Holiday 2009

Thanks for name-checking us Georgie boy!

ManLab: BEACH BOYS

George Bowler talks us through the ideal summer grooming and fashion regime for men

"Finally, local eyewear brand CASSIUS is another goodie to sink some hard-earned dosh into. CASSIUS sunnies have already graced the faces of The Killers, MGMT and The Black Eyed Peas and have appeared on the cover of Playboy Magazine. Score. The Corbu and the new limited edition Maher are enough to get me hot and bothered."

www.cassiuseyewear.com

Are y'all excited?

Yep its been an exciting day; mega-retailer Urban Outfitters has been in touch about stocking Cassius Eyewear!

And elsewhere we heard runway diva extraordinaire, Miss Jay Alexander, has arrived in Auckland, and we're excited about the runway finale happening on the... umm, that's as much as I can say except that its the first time in ANTM history that the international destination won't be a huge secret! Everybody seems to know something, what do you expect from such a small country with only 2 degrees of separation lol!

Hello Angels!

The Victoria Secret Fashion Show 2009

What a crappy day! Here's something to entertain you since its a 'stay-warm-inside-keep-your-wings-dry-kinda-day' anyway; 'The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2009' feat. performances by Cassius Eyewear fans, The Black Eyed Peas!

Plus a roll-call of your favorite angels; Adriana, Alessandra, Behati, Doutzen, Heidi, Liu, Marisa, Miranda. (Aired on CBS, 1 Dec 2009).

Download and watch here. Lap it up...

GQ Style Correspondent? 8½ years old you say?

Wow it never ceases to engage us, the different angles fashion, media etc. will come from or the people they come from, but this is one I haven't heard until now, children telling grown-ups how to dress.

If you thought 13 year old Style Rookie blogger Tavi Gevinson; the recent toast of New York Fashion Week, was ludicrously young to be dishing out fashion advice, then meet 8½ Arlo Weiner–style correspondent for American GQ magazine. Hang on, is this a joke?

GQ appointed its youngest style correspondent, Arlo 'The Littlest Dandy' earlier this year; Arlo recently started third grade, attends summer Shakespeare camps and is the son of uber-stylish 'Mad Men' creator, Matthew Weiner (which has received critical acclaim, particularly for its historical authenticity and visual style, and has won multiple awards, including nine Emmys and three Golden Globes).

Many have detected a whiff of nepotism. But whether Arlo has any raw talent as a fashionisto, or not as the case may be, I do think its interesting that 'a child' has been drafted by GQ, a publication targeted predominantly at an adult-male demographic, to shed light on how essentially grown-ups should dress. Which then brings to question; what does 'a child' know about fashion, will grown-up men take style queues from an 8½ year old, and are online media sites growing so fast and hungry that they're looking for the most unlikely of places, like the playground, for content?

Interesting... he's endearing if not a little precocious (perhaps a modern-day Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer), a little too eager to grow-up I think. And maybe a tad young to be jetting between New York-London-Paris-Milan fashion weeks, but you never know if he'll turn up front row alongside Suzy Menkes, Michael Roberts, Sally Singer, Anna Wintour and Hamish Bowles eventually.

December 1, 2009

Cycle 2: We're going to give YOU some Cassius Eyewear... [so read on]

Congrats to Matthew Ravenhall who scored himself a pair of #MA003 MAHER for himself last week. Here comes round 2:

1. Follow us on Twitter and help spread the word; RT this post to your followers.

2. Then Tweet us @CassiusEyewear which style you'd like, and anything else you want to say.
3. We'll select a random Tweet, ... or two, each week from today until Christmas, and send him/ her their pick. Simple.

So start Tweeting...

There's no limit to how many times you enter so Tweet each week if you want. Oh and don't just Tweet us like SO many of you are doing, you have to Follow us as well.

Aigh.

Nick Knight '100 Portraits' SHOWstudio: LIVE

This man is a god... one of may in my eyes. One of my very first memories of Nick Knight's work that inspired me to, not only design but shoot, was Alexander McQueen's 'It's a Jungle Out There' presentation in 1997–a visit to H.G. Wells' 'The Island of Dr. Moreau'. The invitation was a black & white photograph by Nick Knight digitally manipulated to show a model with horns sprouting from a breast, and a hip and leg with furry ankles and cloven hoofs. At the time, Knight said in response to the notion that such manipulations are misogynistic, "The current mainstream images portray women as so bland, as powerless victims in some way. These women are powerful. They're scary, in control.''

After that, over the course of my 3-years living in London from 1997-99, I saw Knight continue to push the boundaries of photography, more often than not in collaboration with Alexander McQueen, shooting for The Face, Visionaire, Vogue–all provided important outlets for his work, and of course with i-D, a relationship that extends all the way back to 10 years as the publication's Picture Editor.

So too later, did Dazed & Confused, for whom his work has included a series of photos of women who have had mastectomies because of breast cancer, and Knight's 1997 editorial of a then curvaceous Sophie Dahl–inspired by his wife and agent, Charlotte Wheeler.

"I married Charlotte [Wheeler]; she's curvaceous, and I believed when I married her that she was the most beautiful woman in the world - that's why you marry someone. So I thought to myself, "Well, this is the truth so why can't I photograph women like that, why can't I work with a curvaceous aesthetic as opposed to the linear one that fashion tends to uphold?" It's this sort of figure of a woman that has been perceived as beautiful throughout the history of art, and so why are we not seeing it any more?".

Fashion-able, Dazed & Confused, Nick Knight, September 1999

In 1999, I met athlete and double amputee, Aimee Mullins, (who modelled for McQueen in his spring-summer presentation entitled '#13' on a pair of hand-carved wooden prosthetic legs made from solid ash). She was featured by Knight for the September issue of Dazed & Confused; it was a shoot entitled 'Fashion-able' in which a range of disabled people appeared as models, paired with and styled by a new emerging crop of British designers. Knight's large colour photo presented Mullins on the floor, her head in her hand in a defeated, melancholic position as a broken Victorian doll, wearing Alexander McQueen and Alexander McQueen for Givenchy Couture. Coming from Allentown, Pennsylvania, the world of British high fashion was "different" for Mullins.

This year i-D turns 30, and in honor of their anniversary, Knight will shoot its next editorial project '100 Protraits' in front of a live audience, to be featured in the magazine's spring issue. The spread will feature numerous icons plucked from the worlds of fashion and music who have graced the magazine's pages over its 30-year life and will work as part of Knight's ongoing 'SHOWstudio: Fashion Revolution' exhibit at London's Somerset House, from today through December 20th when the exhibition is complete.

Day 1 featured East London post-punk/ rock art group, S.C.U.M, Cassius Eyewear fan and grime vocalist, Tinchy Stryder and Florence and the Machine. Today we have confirmation of photographer Emma Summerton, fashion designer Giles Deacon, actor James Buckley, Joe and Duke Brooks, stylist and LOVE Editor-in-Chief Katie Grand and Ponystep's Editor Richard Mortimer.

Watch the live stream here from 11:00 GMT or you can be a spectator in the flesh via two-way mirrors at the Somerset House Live SHOWstudio*.

[*Knight set up SHOWstudio in November 2000, an 'online fashion broadcasting company committed to pioneering, live fashion media'. The company brings together some of the world's most sought-after and influential artists, designers, photographers, writers, and cultural figures in experimental interactive films, projects and live performances. Knight recently turned down a renewal of his contract with American Vogue in order to spend more time with his family–and on the SHOWstudio project.]