Spectacles For Humans : March 2011

SFH mailbox is a smorgasbord of inquiries about all things optical and more, from requests to identify a frame to halfnaked pics from female admirers asking to pick a perfect frame for them.
This particular question comes up with certain regularity and warrants an explanation.

"Hi there, I really enjoy reading your blog. Thanks for sharing. I wonder why you do not carry IC! Berlin. Is Mykita better than IC! Berlin? Regards, J."

To begin with, we must say we have nothing against ic!berlin. On the contrary, we admire the company for revolutionizing eyewear more than a decade ago. What the guys at ic!berlin did with the first collection is akin to reinventing the wheel and the company will forever maintain that aura of invention.

With that said, in 2005, at the time of assembling the original line up of brands for Spectacles For Humans, MYKITA emerged and we had to make a choice - go with established brand or choose a start up. The thing was, the start up had the originals designers from ic!berlin, and without actually seeing the collection in person we approached MYKITA instead of ic!berlin. Later on, after we started working with frames, it became clear that while similar in nature MYKITA offered slightly more in terms of construction. Nosepads were better, temples too, but most of all the hinge did not come apart. That was the main complain we've heard from people who wore ic!berlin. Hinge wasn't as sleek but it stayed together.

What we love the most about both MYKITA and ic!berlin is the way they venture out beyond the realm of normal, engaging in exciting collaborations and other fashion adventures.

THE ANSWER: both ic!berlin and MYKITA are great lines with superb talent behind them and you can't go wrong with either one. The reason we carry MYKITA only is simply because we don't have room for all the cool brands out there. Spectacles For Humans' philosophy is to represent fewer collections but in depth, rather than spread out and boast 40 brands only to carry a dozen or so of safe best-sellers in boring colors.