TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/071089/07108900.011

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 3KB | 58 lines

BUSINESS, Page 46

The Eyes Gotta Have It

A hip Los Angeles company, Oliver Peoples, smartens up specs


    Oliver Peoples has been in the eyeglasses business on and off
-- mostly off -- for the better part of this century. Suddenly he
is the hottest thing in eyewear. He is also dead.

    His overnight ascendancy is equal parts savvy and serendipity.
Almost three years ago, Larry Leight, now 38, was looking to open
an upscale optical shop in Los Angeles with three partners. No one
had any fixed idea about what to stock or what to call the store.
Then Leight's brother Dennis got a call from a New York City
antiques dealer, inquiring whether the group would be interested
in some vintage eyewear. The samples he forwarded were promising:
12-karat gold-filled frames, at least 50 years old and decorated,
as Dennis recalls, "with beautiful markings, beautiful filigree."

    A trip to a Manhattan basement uncovered a true trove. There
were six boxes filled with 1,500 unassembled frames and the tools
to put them together. A deal was struck, and the boxes were shipped
to L.A. Inside one of the treasure boxes was an itemized bill
signed by the eyeglasses distributor whose half-century-old
inventory they had just bought: Oliver Peoples.

    So christened and so stocked, the Oliver Peoples shop opened
on a tony patch of Sunset Boulevard, and has rapidly become the
hippest name in eyewear. Selling a combination of Peoples antiques
(at an average of $200 a pop), timely improvisations on his vintage
designs ($90 to $225) and original concoctions of their own (all
manufactured by Optec Japan), the Peoples people are scoring an
eye-popping success. They have sold some 110,000 frames through a
wholesale operation and opened accounts in chichi retail outlets
from Europe to Japan to Australia. Says Richard Morgenthal,
president of New York City's Morgenthal-Frederics Opticians: "I
have not seen a phenomenon like it in the optical world. People are
asking for Peoples frames by name."

    Whether new or vintage, all Peoples eyewear shares a kind of
avant-garde antiquarianism. These are the specs Benjamin Franklin
would have worn if he'd been into performance art instead of kite
flying. Two Peoples best sellers: frames that combine tortoiseshell
eye pieces and temples with a wire bridge (Nick Nolte sports a pair
in the recent New York Stories); and clip-on sunglasses, the sort
that '30s movie stars would attach to their specs to check out a
polo match over at Will Rogers' place.

    The Leights and their partners are keeping the business
selective and, for many budgets, prohibitive. Faux-tortoise cases
to coddle a new pair of frames are available for $50 (less
flamboyant cases are available gratis, with purchase), and Peoples
does the same kind of careful detail work that Coasters and fast
trackers like to lavish on their cars. One Optec Japan staff member
is employed exclusively to hand color each nose pad to look like
tortoiseshell. Mr. Peepers may not have been able to afford
anything in the store, but he would have been tempted. As for Mr.
Peoples, gone these 50 years, he turns out to have been not only
an optician but also something of a visionary. If only there were
residuals for eyeglasses.