Eyeballs Eyewear in Paddington is a Sydney stockist of Chrome Hearts glasses and sunglasses. We hold sterling silver, buffalo horn and acetate frames in store, and you can try any of them on — 342 Oxford Street, ten minutes from the Sydney CBD, open seven days.
Chrome Hearts is not really an eyewear brand. It is a Hollywood silversmith that happens to make some of the most obsessively built frames in the world, and once you have handled a pair the difference is not subtle.
Richard Stark founded the house in Los Angeles in 1988, making leather and silver for people who rode motorcycles and played in bands. The eyewear arrived later and carries exactly the same materials: sterling silver temples and hardware, 22 karat gold detailing, buffalo horn, exotic hardwoods, genuine leather, and on the high pieces set precious stones. The frames themselves are hand-made in Japan by the same workshops that supply the best of the independent Japanese houses, and the fittings are cut and finished by hand.
That hand-finishing is why no two horn frames are quite the same colour, and why the silver develops a patina specific to whoever wears it — a Chrome Hearts frame three years old looks like your frame, not like a product. It is also why they are heavy in a way that reads as substance rather than burden, and why the hinges still feel right long after a lesser frame has gone loose.
What we hold in Paddington
We buy across the full range — the quiet acetate pieces as well as the loud silver and horn ones — rather than just what photographs well. That means:
- Sterling silver optical frames and sunglasses, with the signature dagger and cross hardware
- Buffalo horn fronts — each one a different colour, because horn is
- 22 karat gold detailing on selected models
- Plain acetate optical frames, which are considerably harder to source in Australia than the showpieces and are what most of our customers actually end up wearing
- Exotic hardwood and leather-wrapped temples as released
Every frame can be fitted with your prescription, including the sunglasses, and lenses are edged in store rather than sent away — which matters on a heavy front where the bevel has to be cut precisely or the frame sits wrong on the face.
Trying them on
Chrome Hearts is a range that photographs badly and wears brilliantly, and we have lost count of the customers who came in for one model and left with something they would never have picked online. The frames are wide, the temples are heavy, and how a pair balances on your particular bridge and ears decides everything. Come in, put six pairs on, and let us adjust the one you like properly.
If you are travelling in for something specific, call ahead and we will put it aside.
