CAROLINE ABRAM

 

SUMMER 2023 : YUICHI TOYAMA / SCHAU SCHAU / RAPP / RES/REI

 

SPRING / SUMMER 2023

WINTER 2022 - 2023

FALL 2022 | SCHAU SCHAU | HISTOIRE DE VOIR | PIERRE | FRANCIS KLEIN

WHAT’S NEW FOR SPRING 2022

One sunny day in January with a suspiciously golden sunset is all it takes to get us excited about 2022! Sure, it’s still cold and wet outside with waves of Omicron and most likely, more bouts of wintry weather headed our way, but we promise you one thing: it will get nice.  As we enter the third year of the pandemic, it’s time to start strategizing on realistic ways to take calls and host zoom meetings from your patio, garden enclave or wherever your heart desires.  With a new, fresh pair of glasses with Transitions™ lenses or a dedicated pair of Rx sunglasses, you’ll be moving seamlessly between indoor and outdoor locations effortlessly without skipping a beat.

We’ve just finished stocking our shop with new styles from Pierre Eyewear, Rapp, Histoire de Voir, Tavat, Hapter and Nina Mur with more new frames for Spring arriving over the next couple weeks.  We strongly encourage you to book an appointment soon to try on as many of the terrific styles featured below before they’re long gone.  If you don’t see an appointment slot that works with your schedule, give us a call and we’ll do our best to accommodate you.  Look forward to seeing you all soon!

FRANCIS KLEIN 2021 TRUNK SHOW

May 28 - June 5

For one week only…Get 20% off any new Francis Klein frames with the purchase of Rx lenses. Book an appointment online and come try on dozens of new styles from Francis Klein’s 2021 Spring/Summer collection from Paris here—and only here—at OTTICA SEATTLE!

 

SOL 403

On March 5, 2020, Washington state was actively assessing 70 cases of COVID-19 and 11 deaths. On that same day, NASA congratulated Alexander Mather, a seventh grader at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia, the winner of its “Name The Rover” essay contest.  Out of the 23,000 submissions from school-age children, Alexander’s PERSEVERANCE was chosen to join an elite group of robots: Sojourner, Opportunity, Spirit and Curiosity—all named by past contest winners.  (keep scrolling to read on!)

In his winning essay, the bespectacled 13-year old posited, “If you think about it, all of these names of past Mars rovers are qualities we possess as humans…if rovers are to be the qualities of us as a race, we missed the most important thing. Perseverance. We as humans evolved as creatures who could learn to adapt to any situation, no matter how harsh. We are a species of explorers, and we will meet many setbacks on the way to Mars. However, we can persevere. We, not as a nation but as humans, will not give up.”

Fast forward to today, April 23, 2021, 413 days/403 Sols later.  950 million vaccine doses have been administered worldwide. Perseverance and its compact rotorcraft sidekick, Ingenuity, traveled 293 million miles aboard the Atlas V rocket and just logged their second successful flight on the surface of Mars. The kid was right about humans and if the steady stream of individuals we’ve helped over the last ten months offers any indication of the future of our city and region, we have every reason to be hopeful.

OTTICA SEATTLE has always been 100% woman-owned and minority-owned and the sharp contrast between our optimism and the outlook of those facing significant struggles in our immediate neighborhood and across the nation is not lost on us. Given the range of challenging hurdles we all face daily to accomplish goals, each and every visit to our shop is deeply validating and underscores how high our selection of premium frames and expert lensing services rank in priority for humans who need to get stuff done.

For those of you who are just now discovering us, our mission is to provide you with the best frames and a place for thoughtful experimentation with the hope of revealing an effortless beauty and originality rooted in dignity and self-pride. With Spring in full force and Summer just around the corner, now is the prefect time for some new frames and with a proper Rx assessment and strategic lens planning—your new daily frames could also double as your new sunglasses! Book your appointment and come on over to try on these featured styles and much more, all on display now at OTTICA SEATTLE.

 

INTRODUCING NINA MUR

The arrival of NINA MUR’s mood-lifting collection could not have been timed any better for this final stretch of 2020. Pure optimism in the form of brushed metallics, ultra-matte and glossy finishes, and vibrant candy hues make very convincing arguments for updating one’s glasses right now. Lorena Serrano and Davide Fichera, the design duo and brains behind the Madrid-based brand, have perfected manufacturing techniques with Finnish Birch that give their wooden eyewear outstanding strength and durability with an otherworldly lightness and warmth that’s worth experiencing in person. Book your appointment online and get first dibs on these latest styles from NINA MUR and more new arrivals today at OTTICA SEATTLE.



2020  SCHAU SCHAU

You’re making a statement with your glasses whether you like it or not, so why not embrace it and celebrate what you’re made of? Right now, we have an impressive Spring selection of the finest and grooviest styles from Schau Schau along with many more special pieces trickling in steadily. Scroll down to browse these recent arrivals from Vienna and stop by the store to discover your new look for the new year!





FALL/WINTER 2019  HAPTER 8-GON    |    KANEKO    |    RAPP    |    PIERRE |    FRANCIS KLEIN

Cantilevering 2275 meters above sea level on the edge of Mount Kronplatz’s plateau, is Zaha Hadid’s MMM Corones, a museum devoted to the history of modern mountaineering. Many meters down and roughly 130 kilometers to the south, in a small town at the base of the Dolomites, is Eric Balzan’s HAPTER design studio and workshop—the birthplace of his award-winning eyewear collection and 8-GON, his innovative hinge making its quiet debut on our shelves. The mountain as design muse is one way to rationalize why these two disparate feats of design and engineering have taken place in the same remote locale.  But it’s hard to ignore the nagging feeling that there’s a much deeper truth to this coincidence—especially when the levels of design difficulty are cranked up to high. Luckily for us, answers can be found at the top of Kronplatz with Reinhold Messner, mountain climbing’s living legend, as our guide. Messner’s sober perspective on his own staggering list of climbing achievements, which includes the first solo ascent to the summit of Mount Everest in 1978, has us thinking a lot more about the importance and necessity of extreme climates in one’s personal, creative development. 

It’s a well-known fact that Eric Balzan is obsessed with mountains and climbing them.  In fact, the genesis of HAPTER took place on a summit climb in the Dolomites a decade ago when the Italian designer found a pair of early twentieth-century alpine goggles—its austere silhouette now serving proudly as the brand’s logo. But what’s essential about Mr. Balzan’s latest offering, in contrast to where he started years ago, is he seems to be designing and confronting problems more closely to the way he climbs.  Designing a way to fold the temples of HAPTER frames was an exhausting two-year journey that led to his patent-pending “haptic” 8-GON hinge. When fully assembled, the hinge forms a 5-mm block in which two components, an octagon and a rotated square milled out of a single block of stainless steel, interlock. Reliant on neither screws nor springs, the 8-GON is described as a “prehensile hand with two frontal fingers and an opposite thumb” with an incremental, rotational snapping movement that feels wonderfully satisfying.

Within the consortium of independent eyewear designers—the majority of whom are deeply passionate about their trade—Eric Balzan’s modus operandi for HAPTER registers happily within the extreme end of the dial. Much like Zaha Hadid’s gravity-defying interpretation of rock faces and Reinhold Messner’s legendary 8,000-meter ascents, there’s simply nothing ordinary about Mr. Balzan’s efforts and those who wear his glasses.  Now is a great time to visit the shop to see these pieces and so many more, all on display now at OTTICA SEATTLE.

 

SUMMER 2019  INTRODUCING: CAROLINE ABRAM    |    HISTOIRE DE VOIR    |    REIZ    |    SCHAU SCHAU    |    PIERRE    |    RAPP   

We’ve front-loaded this update with two quick introductions for collections that might get overlooked among the groovy, bold and assertive shop favorites that follow. New to OTTICA SEATTLE is a Parisian line from optician-turned-designer, Caroline Abram who offers a sophisticated warm-weather sensibility in her designs. Generously oversized and yet delicate, the frames we’ve stocked have a glamorizing, ultra-feminine effect on the face with unexpected—sometimes asymmetrical—finish details that glint like dainty pieces of jewelry. Another collection that deserves a closer look is Histoire de Voir, the brainchild of Stephane Sarnin—also an optician-turned-designer from Paris whose leather cladding techniques have become his signature. A slight tilt of the face reveals exotic, plaited, studded or heavy-stitched leather inlaid on bridges and temples—tactile details that quickly shed any notion of ubiquity one might assume with such classic silhouettes. Come on over to try on these styles and many more which can only be found here, at OTTICA SEATTLE.

INTRODUCING  RIGARDS

At the heart of RIGARDS is an obsession with creating imposing styles via material innovation as evidenced by the brand’s award-winning metalloid collection of aluminum-magnesium alloy frames which routinely belie their substantial builds.  The assembly of exclusive flex-hinge mechanisms, genuine horn nose pads, and solderless constructions with anodized finishes of 95-percent recycled aluminum meets high standards for style, comfort and quality while maintaining the smallest carbon footprint possible.  That’s not to say that the brand only produces metal frames.  RIGARDS is also deeply invested in water buffalo horn which comes with its own distinct benefits: all natural and compostable, oil and moisture-wicking, hypoallergenic and 30-percent lighter than acetate!  Horn eyewear has been around for well over a century and although the concept is far from new, RIGARDS has managed to make horn relevant in a somewhat counterintuitive way: work it to the point where it no longer resembles horn. Thick rounded silhouettes look like polished jade and the black styles we have in stock are wonderfully mysterious with a finish reminiscent of binchotan and yet so lightweight it disguises itself as carbon fiber—like a trophy example of some future 4D-printing tech.

Purchasing decisions speak volumes about one’s beliefs and as we enter our seventeenth year, we’re proud to say that we’ve built our business on supporting independent brands like RIGARDS who create with both an imagination and a conscience. Come try on these special pieces and more new arrivals on display now at OTTICA SEATTLE.


INTRODUCING  YUICHI TOYAMA

For wire-frame loyalists or those looking for unique alternatives to traditionally thin silhouettes, we invite you to come browse our fantastic new collection from Japan. Ultralight with details like solid titanium nose pads, wafer-thin crystal acetate and hairline pops of color, Yuichi Toyama's handmade frames extol the virtues of minimalism to great effect.  Come try on the entire collection and more new arrivals—all on display now at OTTICA SEATTLE!