Sunglasses: The Shady Business

It's weak, insipid, and entirely unreliable. Yet Britain's first burst of sunshine has prompted a retail response as reliable as our urge to strip off in public parks: when the sun shines, we buy new sunglasses.

Across the high street, retailers are reporting a solar-powered upsurge in sunglasses sales this week. The greatest is at John Lewis, where a spokesman said sales were 315 per cent higher in April compared with March - a spike that's only expected to steepen. At the specialist chain Sunglass Hut, sales in airports and parts of central London that are frequented by tourists remain level throughout the year. However, sales in outlets where customers are predominantly British wither in winter then flourish in spring.

Waiting to lure these blinking spring consumers to the tills is one of the most sophisticated, creative - and apparently diverse - marketing machines in fashion.

CATWALK Left to right: Prada £375 and Dolce & Gabbana £370

British retailers from Marks & Spencer and Boots to River Island, Asos and Topshop all commission their own collections. Then are the established marques that make only sunglasses; Ray-Ban, Carrera, Persol, Oliver Peoples, Maui Jim and Flexon all produce prestigious frames for purists. And finally there are the fashion designers; alongside their latest clothing collections, almost every one of them now produces branded frames.

This year's designer shades are dizzyingly diverse. From the scores of new-season pairs being showcased in London last week, standouts included some ocean-blue acetate wayfarer-alikes (with rubberised temple tips designed to stop them falling from faces) by Ralph Lauren. Paul Smith has some lovely restrained librarian-chic aviators with notches at the bridge that work particularly well in dark green. The jeweller Tiffany's collection features its trademark heart-shaped lockets embedded next to the hinge, while Stella McCartney's flat-topped, oversized paparazzi-shields are tortoiseshell only in effect - in line with her ethical policy, they are made of recycled plastic.

Sunglasses: the spring 2013 edit

Certain shapes - the classic wayfarer and aviator styles - remain de rigueur elements in almost every designer collection (these perennial sellers are the sunglasses equivalent of jeans). New industry-wide trends include ultra-light, brightly coloured frames designed to stay in place during sport and a dubious return to perfectly circular, John Lennonish-shapes.

The most significant recent trend, however, is the rise of the It-shade: for those who can't afford to wear this season's clothes but wish to appear au courant, many designers now transplant their latest prêt-a-porter motifs on to their sunglasses.

This summer Dolce & Gabbana's Sicilian beach-awning stripes and cutesy pastel sculpted flowers have both made the leap from its catwalk to sunglasses. Burberry's metallic Quality Street colours have been transplanted from its trench coats to oval-lensed specs, while Prada's sombre, Japanese-influenced daisy decorations - as worn by Jessica Stam backstage in our picture above left - went straight from designer's sketchbook to sunglass range, too.

CATS EYES Miranda Kerr in Miu Miu; top to bottom: L'Wren Scott £235, Alexander Wang for Linda Farrow £216 and Christian Dior's Demoiselle £289 PHOTO: REX

It is Miuccia Prada who should take responsibility for this rise of the new It-shade; two years ago she presented an outrageously sinuous curlicued selection of baroque-influenced sunglasses that Elton John in his Seventies pomp would have relished. These, crucially, echoed that season's collection, starred on her catwalk - and went on to be one of 2011's key fashion trophies, proudly posed in by every street-style celebrity worth her discount card.

Yet there is a downside to this transformation of sunglasses from semi-functional item to unashamedly out-there fashion statement - they are becoming very expensive. One model of Giorgio Armani sunglasses will cost £699 (pictured above) in stores this summer. Yes, these are a fetching pair of ultra-light metal-framed aviators that come with silk-lined leather blinders studded by the same sequins and crystals that featured in the Italian's catwalk collection, but that's still an extremely expensive pair of shades.

One significant reason that sunglasses have become so eye-wateringly costly is that, despite the apparently competitive jostle of different names in this multibillion‑pound market, the vast majority of them are produced by just three immensely powerful companies.

Spektre: the new cult sunglasses

America's Marchon Eyewear's list of licenses includes Calvin Klein, Chloé, Valentino, Fendi and Michael Kors, while the Italian firm Marcolin makes sunglasses branded to Tod's, Balenciaga, Swarovski and Tom Ford. But the biggest of all is Luxottica - a company that is to sunglasses what Nestlé is to food. All of the designer ranges described previously are made by the Italian firm, which yesterday revealed sales of £1.6 billion in the last four months - and which analysts expect to sell £6.5 billion's worth of sunglasses in the whole of 2013.

Announcing the figures Andrea Guerra, Luxottica's CEO, described the UK's appetite for their products as "fast and strong" and said "we are now psychologically ready for the usually important sun season".

As well as laying claim to the greatest amount of designer names, Luxottica owns Ray-Ban, Persol and Oliver Peoples - the three most resonant specialist sunglasses brands - and a 7,000 strong network of specialist shops that includes Sunglass Hut. Its latest trophy is the licence to produce Giorgio Armani designs - including those £699 jaw-droppers - which it expects to generate annual sales of around £160 million.

CRAZY Lady Gaga; top to bottom: KTZ by Linda Farrow Gallery £320, Miu Miu £190 and Jeremy Scott by Linda Farrow Gallery £175 PHOTO: REX

This market dominance has inspired a smaller, independent type of company, two of the best of which are British, to attempt to either undercut or outclass the big three firms. Linda Farrow, the creator of Yoko Ono's cinema-screen wraparounds, whose design-led Seventies firm has been revitalised by her son, is now the sunglasses-maker of choice for edgier, emerging designers such as Alexander Wang and Erdem. The London business Cutler & Gross boasts no-logo frames and its own top-quality Italian factory - as well as pricetags that often surpass £300. And in the USA a new business called Warby Parker is winning both press and orders for its line of Chinese-made design classics at prices that are vastly cheaper than the big three's.

A Man's Guide to Sunglasses

Luxottica, however, is no pushover: it maintains its American brand Oakley is still all USA made, while Persol's peerless frames are still manufactured - as they have been for decades - in Turin. Many of its other brands - such as the popular-in-Europe mid-ranged "Vogue" line - are Chinese assembled, but many of its big fashion designer lines come stamped "Made in Italy". And while it keeps pumping out those customer-catnip It-shades, the hottest sunglasses you'll see this summer will almost certainly be made by Luxottica or one of its closest rivals - whichever designer logo happens to be stamped on its arm.

Via: Sunglasses: The Shady Business