ronan and erwan bouroullec design 'sugata' eyeglasses for JINS

following collaborations with jasper morrison, konstantin grcic, michele de lucchi, and alberto meda, JINS eyewear has now teamed up with french designers ronan and erwan bouroullec. the partnership is the fifth installment of the ‘JINS design project’, an initiative that sees some of the world’s most influential designers create glasses for the japanese eyewear brand.

designing eyewear for the first time, the bouroullecs wanted to create frames for JINS that were light, minimal, and available in a range of vibrant colors. named ‘sugata’, meaning shape or expression in japanese, the eyeglasses blend in with the wearer’s face, conveying a sense of lightness and transparency. in order to achieve the minimal form, the brothers used a lightweight resin called ‘TR-90’ to make the frames as slim and as light as possible.

the ‘sugata’ line-up comprises four different frames, titled ‘O’, ‘R’, ‘S’, and ‘ST’ — with the US release limited to the ‘S’ model. ‘eyeglasses are a part of the expression of the body, with some suggesting concentration and some projecting a softer mood,’ says ronan bouroullec. ‘we’ve been building different geometries of frames; round, rectangular, elliptical and so on. sometimes I prefer the circular ones but, on another day I would feel more attracted to the rectangular ones’.

after JINS first approached ronan and erwan bouroullec to design the glasses, the duo took their time to carefully consider the proposal. ‘the more we thought about the project, the more we became attracted to it and, in the end, we came to the conclusion that the issues involving furniture and eyeglasses are the same,’ erwan explains. ‘both are profoundly connected to human motion and psychology, and have the potential to alter human behavior.’

the bouroullecs then began their research by asking the question: ‘what is elegance?’. the resulting designs saw the elimination of the ‘yoroi’ — the piece between the rim and hinge at the corner of the frames. ‘the reason why we placed significance on air-like transparency was because we wanted the eyeglasses to be an integral part of the person’s posture,’ adds ronan. ‘the ‘sugata’ design is complete when a person wears the form and color of each pair of eyeglasses.’ read more about the JINS design project here.