Introducing Ron Arad’s £900 PQ Eyewear sunglasses

Look at the picture above. You’re looking at a pair of ‘Angel’ sunglasses from Ron Arad’s new eyewear line, PQ Eyewear. RRP between £400 and £900 which is a pretty penny to pay. Yet not. Because these have been in development for a couple of years and are not your average sunnies. When I tried a pair on a few weeks ago at the Karla Otto press day, I thought they were supercool and flattering but didn’t know the back-story. In fact, these are all feats of modern engineering, as you’d expect from the award winning architect and product designer, yet there’s not just one but several ingenious design solutions going on here. There’s the ‘A Frame’ style with it’s adjustable wire structure to fit different widths of head and sizes of nose. Plus the Corbs style (a nod to Le Corbusier) that has innovative springy arms that do away with traditional pin-and-socket hinges, “because those pins can get lost” but easily bend inwards to hug the ears securely. And although most of the frames are hand made from acetate or injection-moulded nylon, some, like the aforementioned superheroic  ‘Angel’ frames, are made using 3-d printed nylon which is a whole new world of manufacturing that I’m only just discovering. So while £400 is certainly a lot of money, it’s the price of forward-thinking design innovation rather than your usual overpriced fashion flash. And they look lovely on (I pretty much tried them all.) Nice one Ron.








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