Chanel. The Fall 2020 eyewear collection makes heritage and innovation collide

Tweed. Just as it meets every desire in fashion, tweed also lends itself to every innovation. The French luxury house Chanel incorporates the fabric into its Fall 2020 eyewear collection

The fabric one almost naturally connects to the French luxury house Chanel was first evoked by Mademoiselle Coco Chanel in 1924 and has witnessed Chanel’s evolution ever since, representing the House’s aesthetic season for season.

While the pattern had mainly been utilized for garments such as the Chanel tweed jacket, or accessories from bags to shoes, the House now unveiled its Fall 2020 eyewear collection, featuring metal tweed engravements. The tweed is embossed onto a plaque in gold, silver, or ruthenium-colored metal, adorning the sides of rectangular sunglasses frames in a black, burgundy, taupe, or tortoiseshell dense, facetted acetate, and temples embellished with a double C.

The collection draws inspiration from the Chanel Fall/Winter 2020/21 Ready-to-Wear runway show. Chanel Artistic Director Virgine Viard leaned on a turn-of-the 1980s photograph of Karl Lagerfeld and his muse Anna Piaggi – Piaggi wearing a veiled Death in Venice hat and Lagerfeld dressed in a morning-dress stripe jacket and vest. For the Fall-Winter 2020/21 Ready-To-Wear show, Viard showcased a modern take on the Chanel empire, making models look like they casually grabbed their clothes from their wardrobes then master the runway. Tweed was one of the main fabrics, seen on two-sets in pastel tones or classic in black and white.

For the Fall 2020 season, the Chanel eyewear models, including sunglasses and spectacles, feature the material titanium. «Introduced last year in the CHANEL eyewear collections, titanium is a lightweight material that is both resistant and hypoallergenic». The collection is dressed with a ‘tweed’ motif on an oversized pair of butterfly-shaped sunglasses, available in matte black, gold, or brown. An optical pantos shape in silver, pale or antique gold titanium comes with blue-light-blocking lenses. «Volumes exaggerated in relief, an insert of tone-on-tone metal framing the entire lens structure, a monochrome right up to the double C… With a nylon frame for increased lightness, these butterfly glasses adopt a sporty-chic allure».

To purchase for American customers on the Chanel.com website, the clients are invited to shop the eyeglass collection via a custom e-commerce experience. Through various features such as a virtual try-on function, Chanel intends to support the customer by disclosing their ideal model by theme, frame shape, and color.