Written by:
Jennifer Corday
Photographer:
Courtesy of l.a. Eyeworks
» Order
this Issue of Curve:
17#9
L.a. Eyeworks co-owners and co-designers Gai Gherardi and Barbara McReynolds have changed the way people think about eyewear, creating original, invigorating eyeglasses since 1979. That was the year the two women opened their first store on Los Angeles’ now famous Melrose Avenue. It has since blossomed into a multimillion-dollar worldwide enterprise. Once lovers, now friends (they call themselves co-wives), they have years of shared experiences together and clearly get a great sense of joy out of operating l.a. Eyeworks.
They met in high school in sunny Huntington Beach, Calif., and were immediately inseparable after realizing they had innumerable traits in common. “I had the worst crush on Gai,” admits McReynolds. “We lived at the beach, so we did all those beach things together—we surfed, we hung out at the Golden Bear and we were always out for an adventure.”
McReynolds was openly gay. Gherardi was not, but on a vacation to the Colorado River, camping under a moonlit sky, the two, uh, changed “the nature of their friendship.”
Back in California, the high school friends became increasingly frustrated with the eyeglass scene, or lack thereof: “The frames at the time were God-awful. Pretty ugly. There was a certain look in the early ’70s—they were these huge things obstructing the face,” says McReynolds.
More than that, says Gherardi, the duo had a desire to revolutionize the eyeglass industry. “A pair of eyeglasses can transform you in a spiritual way—they can open that big wonderful door to let the person on the inside come out and be shared with the rest of the world,” she admits.
The ugly styles, combined with a lack of customer service in the industry, sparked their entrepreneurial urge, and they decided to open their first store on Melrose Avenue; at that time, it was a quiet, deserted sector of Los Angeles.
“It was in the middle of nowhere, a real diamond in the rough, and there was no place like it,” says McReynolds. The first jewel in the l.a. Eyeworks collection was called the Beat, a chunky plastic frame available in over 22 outrageous colors, meant to accentuate and celebrate an infinite spectrum of unique personalities. Hungry for frames with style and individuality, people quickly clamored for more.
Two young customers saw the craze and convinced the women to hire them for an ad campaign featuring the tag line “A face is like a work of art. It deserves a great frame,” which instantly branded l.a. Eyeworks worldwide.
Their first ad was a full-page spread in Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine. The oversized magazine was the first to celebrate fame and was the place to be seen. The black-and-white ads, shot by Greg Gorman, have now featured nearly 200 extraordinary faces wearing l.a. Eyeworks glasses, from Jodie Foster to RuPaul, Pee Wee Herman and John Waters. Gorman’s photo of Andy Warhol sporting their L.A.X. frame is even the trademark image for the Warhol Museum.
“It was always our intention to be really celebratory of the face and how that face presented itself on the planet,” says Gherardi. “It would have been really easy to have drop-dead gorgeous models, but we were more interested in presenting the face of our community.”
Today there are over 600 designs available, three brick-and-mortar boutiques—two in Los Angeles and one in Costa Mesa, Calif.—and an online store (laeyeworks.com). Immediately recognizable for their modern strokes and bold color innovations, l.a. Eyeworks frames have thoroughly infiltrated the popular culture landscape.
“We like stretching the limits of how the world perceives beauty,” McReynolds says.
|
