Half the world will be nearsighted by 2050, predicts the US academic journal Ophthalmology. Omnipresent digital screens, smartphone addiction, light pollution and more are leading us towards a glasses-filled society. But as our collective vision gets worse, who wants to wear those thick Coke-bottle lenses and shoulder the nerdy bookworm stigma that comes with them?
Israeli designer Tamar Canfi is trying to address this eyewear dilemma using an entirely different approach. She started wearing glasses from the age of eight and, as her prescription became more severe, she had to get thick lenses like many of her peers. This experience inspired Canfi to rise above the stigma of thick glasses, instead going all out and embracing her myopia. With the idea of "extreme frames for extreme lenses" in mind, she's creating glasses that make a bold fashion statement.
Exaggerating the thickness of the frames and their visibility on the face, and thereby refusing to "hide the flaw", is the core idea behind the latest project by the industrial design graduate from Shenkar College (Alber Elbaz's alma mater). "They actually conceal the 'disability' aspect of thick lenses better, as all the attention is on the frames," explains Canfi.
In her unusual, futuristic designs, Canfi uses overlapping chunky material in a variety of shapes and sizes, or a series of rectangles in a glass-tiled pattern. Oversized and made of transparent plastic, they're certainly an encouraging experiment in challenging societal norms about myopia – and the aesthetic is bang on-trend as well.
