Alex Perry has released his A/W 2012 range with Specsavers in a decadent Victorian themed launch party. With guests such as Megan Gale, Sarah Murdoch and Kerri-Anne Kennerley, we chat to this icon of Australian fashion on his latest designer collaboration.
You are rarely seen without a pair of sunglasses on your head so a glasses collaboration seemed inevitable! Why did you decide to work with Specsavers to create your own line of opticals?
Because they have a massive arm in the division of glasses, they’ve got great resources, they do a beautiful quality product, and, I don’t know how, they make it at price that is affordable for everybody, without cutting down on quality. I’ve worn glasses all my life, and I know. Pick up a pair of glasses from any designer brand anywhere in the world, and you tell me the difference. You can’t tell!
Your garment collections are very glam. How did you bring that aesthetic across to your optical range?
It’s just what I do, its kinda what I do in fashion, its always about glamourous things. So glamourous finishes, I design shapes that were stylish and timeless, and just use treatments on them that look beautiful, like great glossy enamel colours, gold details, like we have done some crystal details, just stuff that I know is glamourous.
What are the inspirations behind your latest collection?
This one is kinda Victorian, it’s got references from the Victorian era, like gold fan work. It’s also a crossover into an oriental kind of thing as well, where I have chosen bamboo sides and glossy bento box red and purples, those deep rich colours. There’s about Victorian era and oriental flavour that blend really well together for me.
Opticals are not traditionally fashionable items. How do you think women can embrace glasses as part of their outfits?
They wern’t years ago, but if you look at just about every international runway collection, at some stage they have used glasses as accessories. And I think they havent been available in Australia. People in France and Italy and New York, it’s all about what glasses you have. If you’ve got to wear them, yu make sure they are beautiful fashionable ones. We haven’t had the range in Australia, and that’s what we are doing. We are bringing beautiful purples and beautiful reds and blues and different treatments for glasses to make them look like a fashionable item because theyre at such a great price, you can buy a black pair and you can buy a tortoiseshell pair and a colored pair and change it up with whatever you are wearing. That’s what we are doing, we are trying – We’re not saying it is ‘the’ fashion accessory, but we are saying if it’s something that youhave to wear, you can actually wear it beautifully and it can become a fashion accessory.
Thank you to Alex Perry, Specsavers and Open Haus. You can view the new collection at Specsavers here.
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