The Academy LB Featured in American Express Commercial

The Academy, local apparel artisans and friends of the site, has been featured in the latest American Express small business commercial.  

I recently spent some time with The Academy at the Unique LA show in downtown Los Angeles. The motif of the show was locally manufactured, one of a kind product, art, food, and drink. The Academy's forward thinking garment stylings coupled with in-booth manufacturing embodied the essence of the show and stood out from the rest. The company's frontman, Vizal Samreth, could be found hammering rivets to construct one-off belts for customers on the spot.

Witnessing the show gives one hope for the return of artfully crafted, high quality, designer manufactured products. With all that in mind, please enjoy the American Express small business commercial featuring The Academy and Vizal Samreth himself (the commercial ends with a shot of him):

Visit The Academy store in Long Beach at 429 E 1st Street and visit their website for updates and their product selection.

-Benjamin Denzinger

Capital Eyewear Follow Up

 

A while ago, I conducted an interview with the eyewear brand Capital. Capital aims to go against the grain of the current mass manufacturing practices of today by locally sourcing their materials and handmaking their glasses in the United States. The fascination with this type of business practice has led me to connect with others that use similar honest methods of manufacturing their products. Examples include The Academy and Killspencer here in Los Angeles.

Recently, I checked back in with Capital to discover their evolution as a brand. They have grown to occupying their current manufacturing space and pop up shop in San Francisco. They have also expanded into working with bioplastic acetate frames to compliment the wood frames. These plant based plastic spectacles are 100% renewable, biodegradable, and hypoallergenic.

Capital also released a video outlining a good bit of their production process:

 

Handmade in the USA from Capital on Vimeo.

 

In addition to their growth on the manufacturing and retail front, they released a few new frame designs:

 

Capital Sunglasses Interview

Capital is a wildly unique American brand that designs and develops wood framed sunglasses outfitted with Carl Zeiss lenses. In an era that makes it difficult to track exactly where a product is manufactured, Capital hand makes all of their sunglasses and sources all of their woods in the United States. My intrigue in the company led me to contact Capital to further discuss their process, insight, and inspiration.

In the words of Capital: "We are a small group of guys who started out making wood sunglasses in Montana. We've got a bigger shop now but every pair of glasses we make spends hours in someone's hands before it leaves our shop. It's a lot of work but it's really fulfilling and we are happy to be doing it every day."


?: Could you describe the genesis of Capital and the inspiration behind its creation?

Sunglasses have become an extremely mass produced item and it has become sort of okay for everyone to be wearing the same few styles. If you went to a house party and saw someone wearing the same size shirt you had on, you'd probably feel weird. But if you saw someone that was wearing the same glasses that you had on, you wouldn't think twice. It bums me out that it happens all the time. But what's the difference? Why should it be okay to wear the same glasses and not the same shirt?

It is our goal to bring something to the table that other companies don't offer - a pair of glasses that manages to stand out without being loud or sacrificing class.

 

?: What is the inspiration behind Capital's designs and choices of wood for materials?

Designs: Most of our designs are based on vintage frames. We like to take the best designs from the past generations and tweak some curves or make them a bit larger to bring them up to date.

Materials: Making wood sunglasses is fun because there is no textbook for it. If you walk into a wood shop asking how to make sunglasses out of wood, you'll get some weird looks (trust me, I've had my share). So you have to guess and check until you find a way. We set out with two goals:

1) Nothing exotic, endangered, or from a rain forest. We're the only wood sunglasses company right now that's doing this. It's easy for people to say their wood comes from a sustainable source (such as a tree farm in a far away land) but, because it's hard to tell what really goes on at these farms, we decided we didn't want to use anything that could have possibly been from a rainforest and sold through a so called "sustainable tree farm". It's a bummer that this sort of thing happens but when there's money to be made, there are plenty of people willing to label some wood something that it's not for the sake of a few dollars.

2) Wood Sunglasses should be as functional as acetate or metal frames. This one seemed like a no-brainer. We are constantly working to improve the functionality of our sunglasses without sacrificing style.

 

?: What were some of the challenges behind manufacturing a product in American and locally sourcing your materials?

The traditional route for this sort of thing is to call a factory in China and do your best to describe what you want through a serious communications barrier. Then you have to wait 3 weeks to get a prototype that probably won't be too close to the vision you had.

We don't have to deal with any of that. We have our own private shop so if we have an idea for a new frame or innovation, we can have a prototype in a day. We can tweak the smallest things about how our glasses look or function in such a small amount of time so manufacturing in the USA is actually proving to be a huge advantage for us.

 

?: What are your thoughts on the future of manufacturing and do you think domestic manufacturing and local sourcing will become more prevalent?

We think the future of manufacturing isn't in the huge factories of today. The internet has allowed people to find friends with similar tastes anywhere in the world. This is a really exciting idea! It allows small niches to grow and find supporters, no matter how far away the individuals may be. We are proud to be a part of this movement and hope that more and more small companies take advantage of their niche followers and grow with us.

 

?: What does the future hold for Capital?

Right now things are changing really fast. All I can say for the time being is that we will keep releasing stand out frames but we've got some surprises in the pipeline too!

 

Take a look at Capital's website to view their unmatched styes.

Capital Sunglasses - Handmade from Wood in the USA

My involvement with Upton USA watches (website is in development) and collaboration with Product M has made me fascinated with locally sourced, domestically manufactured products. I strongly believe that companies breaking the mold of low cost, high volume overseas manufacturing are going to be become more and more ubiquitous.

One such company that is participating in this revolution is called Capital. Capital produces hand made wood sunglasses all in the USA. The woods they use are all sourced from the US and maintain their original color finish. The styles are vintage inspired with a contemporary upgrade and each pair of sunglasses is slightly unique because of the nature of the woods they use. Below is a small sampling of their designs. Take a look at their website for more information.

Greg Christian Bronze Antler Opener

I did an earlier post about the local Southern California artist and designer Greg Christian. He mentioned that he was working on an antler project. Greg recently finished up the project and emailed me pictures of the resulting antler bottle openers. He hand constructed molds and casted the pieces out of bronze. They are 9 3/4" x 3 1/2" x 1" and weigh in at 8 ounces. As a product designer, I think these antlers make a very nice and unique piece.


Making the molds


Casting process


Finalized product


Opener detail


Unique texture


 

More information about the antler openers and purchasing details can be viewed here.