Eyeballs Eyewear in Paddington is a Sydney stockist of Chanel glasses and sunglasses, and we hold both the optical and the sun collections, including the pearl and quilted-leather temple models, with the rest of the current season available to order. You can try them on at 342 Oxford Street, about ten minutes from the Sydney CBD, open seven days.
A house that actually designs its eyewear
Chanel has been making eyewear since 1999, and it remains one of the few luxury houses whose frames are genuinely designed in-house rather than licensed out and forgotten. The frames are made in Italy, to a standard that is consistent year after year — the acetate is properly polished rather than tumbled, the metal work is fine without being fragile, and the hinges are the sort that still feel the same after two years of being opened one-handed.
The other thing worth knowing is the rhythm. Chanel rotates its eyewear collections faster than most houses, in step with the ready-to-wear seasons. The staple black acetates carry over; the pearl, tweed and coloured pieces are genuinely seasonal, and when a colourway is finished it is finished. That is not scarcity marketing, it is just how the buying calendar works.
The codes, and where they sit on the frame
What separates Chanel eyewear from every other fashion-house frame is restraint. The house translates its own codes directly into the temple and the hinge rather than printing a logo across the front: quilted leather inlaid along the temple, a single pearl set at the hinge, the chain motif rendered in fine metal, a camellia in relief, tweed laminated into the acetate, and the interlocking Cs used small and used sparingly.
Because the detail is doing the work, the shapes stay close to classic — a soft cat-eye, a rounded square, a slim rectangle, a butterfly sun, a round metal with pearl temples. Over the years the house has also run higher pieces such as the Prestige collection, where the lenses themselves were gold-layered. Chanel does not give its frames names: each one carries a four-digit reference and a colour code, which is why people ring us with a number rather than a model.
What we hold in Paddington
We buy the wearable end of the collection as well as the show pieces, because a Chanel frame is usually someone's everyday glasses rather than a costume.
- Optical frames in acetate and fine metal, including the black and tortoise staples
- Sun models, from the rounded square to the butterfly
- Pearl-detail and quilted-leather temple pieces while the season lasts
- Chain and camellia motif models as released
- The rest of the current season's range available to order
If you have seen a reference number online, ring it through to us on 02 9331 4650 and we will tell you whether it is in the cabinet or whether it can still be ordered.
Who it suits, and how it fits
Chanel frames tend to run narrow to medium through the front, with a fairly shallow lens depth on the optical shapes and a low, softly cut bridge. That suits a narrower face and a lower nose bridge well, and it is the reason Chanel often works for people who find Italian frames generally too wide. The sun models run larger, particularly the butterflies, and are cut to sit close to the cheekbone.
The one thing to watch is weight distribution on the decorated temples. A pearl at the hinge or a leather inlay puts a little mass behind the ear, and the frame has to be adjusted so it does not drift forward. That is a five-minute job in store and it is the difference between a frame you wear and a frame you leave in the drawer, which is why we would rather you tried them on here than bought blind.
