For the Autumn/Winter 2015 season, Max Mara has collaborated with artist Maya Hayuk on three different styles of sunglasses featuring a pattern she has dubbed Optiprism. The multicolored rainbow graphics utilized for this project mirror the works from the New York-based artist that fit well both in the gallery as well as on the streets. The original diptych painting by Hayuk now hangs in the fashion house’s Madison Avenue store with a limited amount of the new eyewear destined for boutiques around the world starting in January.
Hayuk further explains – “Max Mara invited me to create a painting inspired by a new prism shape that symbolises strength, femininity and progress. The original intention of Max Mara’s invitation was to simply make an artwork that could translate well as a graphic for the packaging of their sunglasses, not for sunglass frames themselves. In the process, I inadvertently created a re-contextualised graphic pattern that very fortuitously translated beautifully to a miniature ‘stained glass’ sunglass frame. Max Mara has now produced a very small edition of these special little objects. Who knows what’s next! It happened quite organically. When I was making the painting itself, I couldn’t have foreseen the art applied to sunglasses. I wasn’t even thinking about designing sunglass frames! But once I made the repeating pattern and placed them into the sunglass templates, little surprises, like [how the] light refracts onto the viewer’s face in unpredictable and beautiful ways, sparked up.”
Via Wallpaper* Magazine.
Discuss Maya Hayuk here.
