Americans look, gaze, glance, stare, even ogle. But the French do something so much more refined it can`t be translated. They call it le regard. ”We speak with the eyes,” murmured celebrated eyewear designer Alain Mikli through a pair of his own slim, mottled red and tan, square-lens frames. ”You can spend hours staring deep into another`s eyes. You can say things-love, aggression, deception.”
Mikli, who lives and works in Paris, sees his job as dressing le regard from his wardrobe of about 400 frames, each calculated to seduce or sizzle. His frames can be used for prescription eyewear or sunglasses.
”It`s difficult to accept this product in the beginning,” the 36-year-old designer said recently while paying an official visit to Nordstrom in Oak Brook where a small mob of shoppers eagerly groped for his tortoiseshell cat`s-eye frames, black and white movie-star shades and narrow angular sunglasses in blues and greens.
”In the U.S., people wear neutrals, transparent glasses with no style. They hide the personality,” he said. ”They think of glasses as a sign of shame, something negative.”
Au contraire.
Mikli insists the right bold pair can change your face, your personality, your message, perhaps the world itself. ”I want to bother, provoke, perturb society,” said Mikli.
He provoked about 25 Nordstrom customers into taking on a new look, at $75 to $400 a glance.
Mikli started wearing glasses at age 15, and later studied to be an optician. He practiced for a few years, got fed up with the geeky frames he had to choose from and started sketching out his own designs.
Today, there are six Alain Mikli Optique shops throughout the world including Paris, Tokyo, Helsinki and New York, which is his only U.S. location although his frames also are carried in many optical shops and in lines created especially for Claude Montana, Donna Karan and Ray-Ban. Prices can go as high as $400. Now, though, which was the reason for his whirlwind visit to Oak Brook, Nordstrom is carrying a lower-priced Mikli line created exclusively for the store and bearing an ”Eyewear Mikli” logo. Prices on these frames are $75 to $125.
Creating so many options is part of Mikli`s message: ”There`s not one style that everyone buys. I don`t want a uniform. That would be contrary to everything I`m trying to accomplish. Glasses express who you are, and every human being is different.”
He sees his customers the same way. ”They are all people who are curious, who read, intellectuals, cultured people who are always seeking the new.”
Now try saying that with the naked eye.
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Find Alain Mikli glasses at Glasses Ltd., 49 E. Oak St.; Visual Effects Optical, 1953 N. Clybourn Ave.; Oak Street Optical, 72 E. Oak St.; The Joy of Spex, 3341 N. Broadway; North Shore Optical, 561 Lincoln Ave., Winnetka; Craig Scott Optical, 1107-A Central Ave., Wilmette; and Nordstrom, Oakbrook Center, Oak Brook.
