This spring’s best sunglasses are the product of collaboration. DJs, jewelers, and emerging designers have teamed up with time-honored eyewear purveyors, streetwear labels, and athletic brands on styles that stand apart from the rest. Here’s six of our favorite partnerships this season.
1. Rhude x Thierry Lasry
Rhude, the L.A.-based streetwear label founded by Filipino-American entrepreneur Rhuigi Villaseñor in 2012, has enlisted French eyewear designer Thierry Lasry to create custom shades dubbed the “Rhodeo.” Handmade in France using the best acetate from the Italian manufacturer Mazzucchelli, the sleek style combines Lasry’s affinity for bold volume with Rhude’s quintessential moody color palette. Case in point: black, tortoise and honey-hued frames are paired with gray, lemon, pink and azure lenses.
2. Heron Preston x Nike
Creative director-cum-DJ-turned designer Heron Preston has a penchant for sporty performance wear cast in a tinge of futurism. The San Francisco-native’s weightless “Tailwind” running glasses, made in collaboration with Nike, feature a ventilated nose pad and arms to prevent moisture accumulation and come with a set of four interchangeable lenses to suit different light conditions. Alongside the word “style” written in Cyrillic letters at the top of each right-side lens, time markers from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. denote when the lenses should be used.
3. Vetements x Oakley
In his spring 2019 collection for Vetements, Georgian designer Demna Gvasalia spiked athletic wear brand Oakley’s signature Radar EV sunglasses. The style’s rubber frame and tall, iridescent lenses ranging from baby blue and violet to rust and orange take on Vetement’s signature irreverence by way of silver metal studs.
4. Marine Serre x Rudy Project
Marine Serre’s spring 2019 collection—titled “Hardcore Couture” for its revved up mix of flowy dresses, utilitarian pieces, and performance fabrics—was finished off with biking glasses made in collaboration with Rudy Project. The single-lens shades (one gold and orange, the other gray and covered in the 2017 LVMH prize winner’s signature crescent motif) bring Serre’s undeniable cool factor to the Rudy Project’s technical prowess.
Spinelli Kilcollin X Barton Perreira
Friends and business partners Patty Perreira and Bill Barton invited husband-wife design duo Yves Spinelli and Dwyer Kilcollin to give their assiduously crafted eyewear a touch more glamour. The jewelers have transformed their signature tricolor bands into sterling silver, rose gold, and yellow gold-plated annulets (some with pavè-set white diamonds sandwiched in-between) that wrap around matte metal arms. Circular lenses in shades from saccharin lilac and blush to earthy topaz and moss green are framed with the premium Japanese acetate central to Barton Perreira.