In honor of Pride Month in June, seven CFDA eyewear designers are uniting to launch the third annual edCFDA Pride Eyewear Initiative. The designers of Barton Perreira, Blake Kuwahara Eyewear, Christian Roth Eyewear, Krewe Eyewear, l.a.Eyeworks, Press and Selima Optique, will each offer a limited edition sunglass design, with a portion of proceeds collectively benefiting Bring Change to Mind.
Established in 2022, the edCFDA Pride Eyewear Initiative is an annual charitable venture driven by eyewear designers of the CFDA to target and highlight specific needs within the broad spectrum of the LGBTQIA+ and gender non-conforming community. With donations to LGBT+ causes totaling more than $100,000 in its first two years, an expansion from five to seven designers this season bodes well for a record-breaking year in 2024. “While it is the eyewear designers, with the CFDA’s support, who have piloted this outstanding effort, it is also a testament to the optical community – retailers and customers alike – who have embraced the importance of visibility for these causes,” notes Gai Gherardi, co-founder/designer of l.a.Eyeworks.
Proceeds from sales of the 2024 edCFDA Pride Eyewear Initiative will benefit Bring Change to Mind (BC2M), an organization dedicated to ending stigma and discrimination surrounding mental health. The edCFDA’s collective donation will target Bring Change to Mind's high school programs (where almost half of the teens identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community), as well as BC2M’s LGBTQ+ Youth Mental Health Task Force designed to build empathetic allies and activists, and provide crucial support to LGBTQ+ youth. “Access to mental health resources particularly for LGBTQ+ youth is so critical and often lacking in most communities,” notes Blake Kuwahara, founder/designer of Blake Kuwahara Eyewear.” We’re honored to partner this year with Bring Change To Mind to help them continue their support programs and to broaden their reach to even more high schools across the States”.
BLAKE KUWAHARA
Blake Kuwahara debuted his eponymous eyewear collection in 2015 with his artful but wearable design ethos and signature “frame-within-a-frame” concept. By using a proprietary lamination process, Kuwahara creates a deliberate design tension by fusing two distinctive silhou-ettes. Kuwahara’s designs are available in high-end optical boutiques worldwide and in such discriminating specialty retailers as L’Eclaireur (Paris), Selfridges (London), Harrods (London), Isetan (Tokyo), Hotoveli (New York), H.Lorenzo (LA), and The Archive (San Francisco).
