Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2004 | 8:16 a.m.
Eyewear designer Robert Marc and his team were decked in "Robert Marc World Tour" T-shirts.
Buyers bearing hugs came ready to "freak" at Marc's new Sparkle collection. Televisions in the private suite played movie clips of actors wearing Robert Marc frames.
Not your standard eyewear ordered by serve-all optometric offices, these frames are worn by a select group of consumers who know a Robert Marc trademark hinge when they see one.
Hand-laid stones sparkle on the temple of the tortoise frames lined with lemon fig. There's also the nero (black) frame lined with pink bougainvillea. Name engraving is optional. (Uma Thurman, Susan Sarandon, Nick and Jessica have done it.)
Retailing between $395 and $595, the Sparkle line is the latest by Marc, who 20 years ago experimented in his New York boutique to create a new look for vision wear, long before fashion designers had launched eyeglass lines.
In 2002, Marc saw his dream recognized when he was accepted as a member to the Council of Fashion Designers of America.
"It shows that it's no longer just a prosthetic device," Marc said during last weekend's Vision West Expo 2004, where roughly 500 eyewear companies presented their latest lines.
"It's fashion. It very much sets a mood and a tone. It's the easiest way to change your look with just one look. It is an accessory you can use to update your wardrobe without your getting a new wardrobe.
"People are really wardrobing with eyewear. Our average customer is buying multiple pairs."
The latter was a mantra shared by several companies on the expo floor at the Sands Expo and Convention Center and in The Venetian Suites, where reps and designers spoke of consumers accruing an assortment of fashionable eyewear.
"We do it with our clothes, why don't we do it with our glasses?" said Raul Arencibia, optometrist and frame designer for ooh-la-la de Paris eyewear.
And, he said, "You don't just have to have a black, white or silver frame. The bling bling is in."
"It's more like jewelry now," said Mike Willoughby, a representative from Eye Deals of Minneapolis. "We've got people who are changing frames every day."
Looking over the unique architecture and colorful frames of the Danish Bellinger Eyewear line from which he just ordered, Willoughby added, "These will fly out. (They're) so different, which is what our store is all about."
Not everyone was showing luxury lines. Most suppliers and manufacturers at the three-day expo featured conventional minimalist styles, while others offered high-tech gadgetry.
Royal Vision displayed its glow-in-the-dark children's glasses that retail for $69.95. The titanium, bendable, adjustable frames are charged by the sun. "Sometimes kids lose their glasses," Royal Vision's Lorena Martinez said. "It's easier for them to find them. This is our best seller for kids. "When they go outside it charges, and at night (or inside) it glows."
SoftLight Inc.'s line of photochromic hinge-free eyewear doesn't glow in the dark, but changes to pastel colors (lenses and frames) when activated by sunlight or ultraviolet light.
Cadillac, which recently launched its fashion eyewear, offers glasses with a cell phone plug-in in the rear of the temple ($170). The speaker and on-and-off switch are also in the temple.
The eyewear line also has fashion frames with stones, ornate temples and the Cadillac crest.
"The stones, the glitz, it kind of appeals to a person who would buy a Cadillac," said Ken Kitnick, with Styleyes, the company that launched the line. "We have the Escalade line, which is more urban."
MagieS of Pennsauken, N.J., offers magnifying lenses disguised as jewelry, including a Deco clip that is a reproduction of a 1920s brooch that opens to a magnifier. Pendants covered in Swarovski crystals open to magnifying glasses.
"They're for someone who needs to read a menu or a price tag, who doesn't wear glasses or readers," Ellen Kitnick, MagieS co-president, said. "They're just coming into it. They can wear it as jewelry and it's decorative."
E3 Reader, an offshoot of Erker Optical in St. Louis, featured its line of Eye Pods, sets of four reading glasses in multiple colors and even plaids. Said Jack Erker (whose family has been in optometry for 125 years), "Everybody needs more than one pair of readers. Nobody wants just one pair."
E3's line of Cheetah Cheaters ($79.95), four cheetah-print reading glasses, are sold in a fuzzy cheetah-print carrying case (that doubles as a purse). Its line of Rhinesone Readers ($99.95) also come four in a case/purse.
For consumers who prefer leather, Kieselstein-Cord Eyewear features eyeglasses with alligator-print leather temples ($575) with alligators on the hinge. There company also sells frames with buffalo-horn temples and gold frogs on the hinges ($795).
"If we push it they'll buy it," said Darrin Bartley of Chicago Eyewear in Naples, Fla., who was looking over Kieselstein-Cord's line. "It can't be run-of-the-mill."
The company Revue International takes bling to an extreme with its handmade French glasses. Created in bone and plastic with jewels and ornate cuts, the glasses, resembling costume ball masks, run about $375 a pair.
Alessandro Restivo, president of Italian Eyewear Inc., said he's seen interest in the stones pique for the second time.
"Forty years ago this was the style," Restivo said, sweeping his hand over eyeglasses made with adjustable mahogany temples and Swarovski stones in the rims and lenses.
"I've had these eight years now. It's my top seller."
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