Rory Brogan discovers that the frames and sunglasses of Frédéric Beausoleil have found favour among celebs in LA and New York.
With the surname of Beausoleil, roughly translated as 'beautiful sun', it was highly fitting that French optometrist Frédéric Beausoleil would go into the design and manufacture of sunglasses.
Having graduated in 1986, he didn't wait long to escape optical practice and channel his love of sculpture into eyewear design, setting up Lunettes Beausoleil in 1987. 
Such is the success of the company that he established his own factory for Beausoleil's zyl work in Nantes in 1990, where 14 staff are employed in the manufacture and hand finishing of the acetate designs. The coating, colouring and hand-finishing of his metal frames, made in the Jura and Japan, is also carried out there. Even with such labour-intensive work, Beausoleil describes his eyewear as having a good balance between quality and price.
Attending a practice showcase of his product at Mallon & Taub in London's Marylebone High Street last month, he explains that he was trained by an old spectacle manufacturer in Paris and inspired by the horn and tortoiseshell eyewear of the 18th Century. He was particularly fascinated by a six-barrel hinge that was no longer in production, and reintroduced it as a design feature that has come to symbolise his eyewear.
He describes his sunglass styles as pure and simple, clean, neo-classic designs that are logo-free, with a relationship between colour and form. These, he says, appeal to a particular type of wearer. 'Sunglasses demand a fashion name and really our customers are clientele who do not want to wear a big brand name.'
Beausoleil describes one large men's model as 'huge but extremely elegant, for a rich person who doesn't want to look rich'. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for the brand's status among celebrities, as seen by the press pack, which lists wearers from Robert de Niro to Robert
Redford, Julia Roberts to Robin Wright Penn. Beausoleil clientele tend to be from the major cities, from New York to LA, he adds.
Sunglasses are noticeably big – acetates in rich colours, that are wraparound while still lightweight, some clearly taking their influence
from the 80s. 'We are playing with 6- and 8-base and the size has been big for some time,' says Beausoleil.
As men are more conservative, 70 per cent of sunglass styles are aimed at women. Some of the feminine designs are adorned with hand-made crystals, for example champagne on horn acetate, amethyst on purple, black diamond on black, while others have laser-cut matt finishes.
The diamanté styles are conservative from the front – it's only when the wearer moves that you can see the glamour of the sides, says Beausoleil.
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| Frédéric Beausoleil |
Three aerodynamic wrapped metal-fronted sunglasses for 2005 are eye-catching, with acetate sides whose end-tips feature a drilled-out hole, more for decoration than function. Lenses have a graduated anti-reflection coating on the rear for comfort and the sunglasses lock so that the sides do not touch the lenses when folded.
While one larger men's supra sunglass in acetate also works well as an ophthalmic style, the sunglasses in the main contrast dramatically with the smaller ophthalmic styles. The frames include brightly-coloured powder-coated titanium designs, very fine and flexible wire frames in stainless steel that are made in Japan, and a healthy choice of acetates, some in rectangular options.
Beausoleil explains that he doesn't actually seek to have 'harmony' between the ophthalmic and the sunglass lines as that would be difficult to achieve.
'We have a large collection of 40 metals in prescription, but in sunglasses our reputation is for zyl so we focus on that,' he says.
In ophthalmics the mix is 60 per cent for women, 40 per cent for men, with lots of women's supra shapes, which are popular, along with slightly conservative titanium men's styles and others with ergonomic acetate sides.
Colour is clearly important and he introduces 10 exclusive acetate colours through Mazuchelli each year. In the latest frame collection there are candy stripes of red and purple with framboise, orange mixed with grey and red and lavender and mango. 'Cherry is a fabulous colour and is the best-seller for ladies, with brown second. White is starting to become popular,' he says.
New women's acetate designs for 2005 include model O/324 which mixes crystal and colour and O/340 which is described by the company as 'goodbye to the big and round Jackie O style and welcome to the discrete and refined Audrey Hepburn style'. The company predicts this model will 'attract the actress woman'.
Looking at the Beausoleil press pack's two-page list of celebrity wearers, many of them top-name actresses, this is clearly no exaggeration.
For further information, contact Charles Wolfe on: 00 33 6 3037 6558, or email: Seawlfe@aol.com