Luxury Eyewear: The Must-Have Style Accessory for 2023

Let’s face it: it’s been a tough few years, and we’re more than ready to infuse a little luxury into your style. And when you’re looking to accessorize your style with a bit of luxury indulgence, then you should look no further than twelvesixtynine’s incomparable selection of high-end eyewear. 

From the haute fashion, future-focused designs of Matsuda to the Bauhaus minimalism and organic designs of Ahlem, we offer a curated selection of luxury brands that are sure to become your must-have fashion accessory for 2023–and beyond.

Handmade Eyewear that’s Generations in the Making

There’s no shortage of luxury eyewear on the market today. But what separates twelvesixtynine from other industry-leading purveyors of luxury eyewear is our partnership with designers and manufacturers who aren’t just producers. They’re artists.

At Twelvesixtynine, we are proud to have cultivated long and successful relationships with some of the most storied, and the most innovative, eyewear designers from around the globe. 

For many of our designers, the creation of best-in-class sunglasses and spectacles is a family tradition that has been passed down through each generation. Consider, for example, the Jacques Marie Mage brand. Each pair of JMM shades and spectacles is a limited-production item handcrafted by an elite artisan located in the birthplace of modern eyewear, Sabae-Fuki, Japan. 

And then there’s the Eyevan brand, Japan’s first brand of high-end eyewear and still its most iconic. For nearly half a century, Eyevan has been drawing inspiration from Japanese culture to produce meticulously crafted shades and spectacles created by artisans in and around Kyoto.

And what this means is that when you purchase eyewear from twelvesixtynine, you’re not getting a trendy, mass-produced product with a designer label and a price tag to match. You are getting a custom, handmade, painstakingly created work of art. You are wearing the culmination of weeks and months of loving toil and centuries of tradition.

Independent Designers, International Flair

It is not only the level of craftsmanship that sets twelvesixtynine brands apart. Accessorizing with a twelvesixtynine brand means that you enjoy the luxury of integrating the best of East and West, Europe, the Americas, and Asia, into your personal style. 

As we have already seen, when you want to find the true heart and home of modern eyewear, you must travel east and, in particular, to Japan. 

To be sure, many of our Japanese designers are very much about unleashing the greatest gifts of yesteryear, and in their vintage designs you can most certainly celebrate the glory of a storied tradition. This is evident, for instance, in the respected Matsuda and Eyevan brands.

And yet many of our Asian manufacturers are bringing a highly futuristic feel to their designs, resulting in a bold, forward-thinking, and ultra high-fashion spectacle. This includes the innovative Vada brand, with frames crafted in Japan featuring eyelets to allow wearers to add jewels and other embellishments for the ultimate custom look. Vada is, in other words, quintessential in post-modern design language: superbly stylized, ultra idiosyncratic, and ever so interchangable, depending on the mood of the wearer at any given moment.

As significant as East Asian design influences have been for twelvesixtynine’s assortment of curated designers, many have also drawn inspiration from Europe and the Americas. The acclaimed independent brand Ahlem, for example, is a Los Angeles-based enterprise with its design roots deeply embedded in Europe. From the classical architecture of Paris to the peacefulness of the French countryside to the minimalist stylings of Bauhaus, Ahlem combines the organic and the beautiful, the influences of the natural and the built world. The result is a Euro-American cosmopolitan style story that is warmly traditional, yet thrillingly contemporary.

But, of course, there’s contemporary and then there’s contemporary. Enter the Vava brand with its Italian design sensibility. If you are looking for conceptual design with a distinctly Bauhaus flavor, then Vava has just the frames for you.

Unique Eyewear Designs for a One-of-A-Kind Style Statement

When it comes to your personal style, there are few better ways to unveil the uniqueness of your individuality than through your choice of accessories. And this is what makes the brands available at twelvesixtynine the ideal eyewear accessory for your 2023 wardrobe.

Designer brands, in the vast majority of cases, are mass-produced items created to capitalize on–and advance–emerging fashion trends. And what this means is that when you invest in a pair of designer shades or specs, the odds are pretty good that you’re going to end up with one of several hundred thousand replicas. You’re going to find your shades on the pages of any number of celeb websites and glossy magazines.

But if you want to invest in high-end eyewear that is uniquely, quirkily, and indisputably you, then handmade, artisanal eyewear is the path for you. And in this way, you are selecting among an array of limited production items that are meticulously designed and painstakingly crafted. 

This means, through them, you’re emancipated from the engulfing tides that are trends. You’re free to bask in options that, for instance, reflect your love of old Europe or modern Japan, that pay homage to your reverence for nature or your devotion to classic Hollywood, that illuminate your sleek, minimalist style or that speak to your glory in all things ornate and Baroque.

High-end Eyewear, Low Environmental Impact

As dedicated as the brands offered at twelvesixtynine are to producing the highest-quality, hand-made eyewear in the world, there’s also another commitment motivating these brands. That commitment is to the environment and to minimizing the impact their processes have on the natural world around us. 

Our independent producers engage in a range of sustainable practices that seek to minimize the depleting effects that so many sectors of the fashion industry continue to have on the environment. 

This includes the practice of using recycled materials and minimal plastic packaging for all twelvesixtynine products. For example, the Ahlem brand uses vintage acetate sheets in the production of their cellulose frames to minimize the environmental impacts of sourcing product materials. Likewise, almost every pair of sunglasses and spectacles sold by twelvesixtynine comes packaged with a custom vegan leather case and microfiber cloth. 

If you are ready to find your new favorite luxury eyewear accessory for 2023, visit our twelvesixtynine boutique or contact our team of eyewear specialists today. We look forward to placing you in spectacles that are authentically you.