Lindberg's buffalo horn frames put a hand-polished natural horn front on the same screwless titanium structure the rest of the house uses, which is why they look substantial and weigh almost nothing. We hold the horn collection in Sydney and can measure and specify a frame for you at 342 Oxford Street, Paddington, ten minutes from the CBD.
Why horn, and why no two are alike
Horn has been used for spectacles for centuries, and it has properties no polymer reproduces. It is naturally light, it is hypoallergenic, it warms to the skin rather than staying cold against it, and when it is hand-polished it takes a natural gloss rather than a sprayed one. Because it is a natural material, colour and grain vary along the length of a single horn — so no two Lindberg horn frames will ever be the same, and the two temples on one frame are cut to be close rather than identical.
Lindberg's version is a modern one. The horn is combined with high-tech titanium rather than used alone, so the front carries the material and the titanium carries the load, and the hinges and flexible temples come from the same screwless system as the rest of the house.
How it is built and specified
There are no screws, no rivets and no welded joints anywhere in the structure; the frame is held by the spring of the titanium itself, which means there is nothing to work loose in a material that would not take a repeated screw anyway. Every frame is made to order, hand-finished and individually numbered.
Specifying one takes a conversation. You choose the rim shape, the temple style, the bridge and a finish on each — horn fronts run through the browns, greys, blacks and mottled honey tones that the material actually produces, and they can be paired with matte titanium in a colour of your choosing. Because the bridge is bent to your own bridge profile rather than picked from three sizes, this is a range that has to be measured on the face.
Who it suits, and looking after it
Horn suits people who want a frame with visible warmth and presence but cannot bear weight on the nose — it is the answer we reach for when someone likes the look of a thick acetate and has given up on wearing one. It also suits sensitive skin, since neither horn nor titanium tends to provoke a reaction.
The care is simple: keep it out of a hot car and off the dashboard, do not leave it soaking, and let us re-polish and re-oil it when it starts to look dry, which we do in store. Horn frames are made to order in small numbers — ring us on 02 9331 4650 and we will talk through what is in the cabinet to try and what the current lead time on a build is.