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product code : k8318 :
£ 165
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1980's demi-amber plastic frame marked
HEADBREAK and LUGENE
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Can be glazed with
Rx or
sunglasses lenses.
condition
size
other info
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Lugene were high end opticians and innovators who started in 1922
in NYC and made their own designs - for which they soon started
taking out patents - as well as importing frames from continental
Europe.
Here is one of their ads from 1939 which reveals the genesis
of women's cat-eye frames - a Harlequin shape, which was the idea
of artist Altina Schinasi, and developed by Lugene. Clare Boothe Luce
bought the first pair; Katharine Cornell the next, and so their popularity
soared - Lugene had seen the potential and sold the frames exclusively
at their Madison Street store. America's elite went to Lugene for their
eyewear looking for the exceptional, and their celebrity clients included
Greta Garbo, Miles Davis and Cary Grant. By the 1980s there were just
three more stores outside of their three New York stores: Houston,
Dallas and Palm Beach and their slogan was 'Lugene means style'.
Headbreak was one of their designs ('Lugene' was printed on the other
side, inside the left temple, but unfortunately that was lost when the
frame was being restored) and is a typical late 70s through 1980s
retro style. Something started perhaps by
Clark Kent in the 1978
Superman movie and with 60mm lenses, this is one giant of a man's
frame. And Lugene have upped the detailing too, so there are three
old-style pinhead rivets on the lugs for decoration, while contemporary
sunken joints are used for the temples. Of course the acetate for these
mega horn-rims is great too, with amber tones that are translucent
so as not to overwhelm the face. Sadly, Lugene closed in the 1990s
but then many of the great and unique eyewear makers did in the face
of mass production overseas. Headbreak is a whole hunk of US history.
— klasik
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