The Sound of Design

Music has accompanied mankind since its very beginning and is being created every day. So it is not surprising that most "new music" sounds familiar because it consists of a virtually endless number of existing themes – until we hear something that stands out and cannot be easily categorized; something that has the potential to define a completely new style or genre in its own right.

Aalen, Germany | 15 July 2016 | ZEISS Vision Care

This evolutionary pattern seems to apply to most arts and also adjacent disciplines like fashion and design. Except there’s one big exception:, unlike "free artists", designers and fashion designers tend to be tasked with a more or less specific assignment, which can severely limit creative innovation. After all, a car is just a car and a swimsuit is just a swimsuit, isn't it? SUVs and the bikini are only two examples which demonstrate that, even when limited by a specific product category, it is possible for some creative minds to create something, that has never existed before.

The Italian sunglasses manufacturer RETROSUPERFUTURE^® managed such an achievement when they presented their TUTTOLENTE series in summer 2015. As part of the "SUPER" range of sunglasses, the TUTTOLENTES put into practice the radical idea of creating the whole pair of glasses entirely out of the lens material and combining it with an almost completely flat design. The end result: these sunglasses truly stand out. "We used only minimal metal hardware to hold the components together", explains Daniel Beckerman, founder and CEO of RETROSUPERFUTURE^®. "There is no difference between the lenses and the frames, and even the arms are made out of one single sheet of ZEISS mirrored lens material. Hence the name: TUTTOLENTE literally means 'all lens'." The entirely new look of the TUTTOLENTE sunglasses caused quite a stir in the design community. Moreover, they proved to be a big hit with customers, including quite a few celebrities from the world of fashion as well as music: do names like Rita Ora, Martin Solveig, Demi Lovato, Santigold, and Theophilus London sound familiar? So not only were the TUTTOLENTES a commercial success for the company, but they also cemented its reputation for leading-edge design at the same time.

Members from the design team at RETROSUPERFUTURE^® remember the creation process: "As soon as we were certain that we would go ahead with the TUTTOLENTE concept, we knew that we had to choose the material for the lenses very carefully, which in this case would be the same as for the frame. Instead of the more frequently used polycarbonate, we opted for polyamide, because the material proved a better match for our ambitions in terms of visual quality, stability, flexibility and resiliency – especially when refined with a premium protective coating." For this reason, finding the right partner was key: "It's similar to music: an instrument that is out of tune ruins the whole song! Of course, there is a vast number of companies that can deliver decent quality – and even more that can't – but since we’re one of the leading designers of sunglasses in the world, it was imperative for us to procure our materials from a leading supplier in terms of not only lens material quality, but also branding. Therefore it was an easy decision for us to go with ZEISS, as they do not only deliver the first-rate material that we expect, but they also enrich our TUTTOLENTES with their unique brand in the optical world."