Optician sadly reports the death of the co-founder and creative director of l.a.Eyeworks, Gai Gherardi, following a short battle with cholangiocarcinoma. She was 78.
Along with co-founder Barbara McReynolds, Gherardi transformed the eyewear sector in 1979 with the creation of the l.a.Eyeworks brand and accompanying shop on Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles. Gherardi and McReynolds met at 15 and took different paths in optics before reconvening in the late 1970s, where they hatched a rebellious plan for what they saw as a stagnant, gender-defined eyewear industry.
Bulk-batches of Shuron and Bauch+Lomb frames were heavily customised through drilling, cutting and dyeing, and were a roaring success at the time. When stocks began to run out, the pair went to a factory in France armed with a nothing but a sheet of paper with one frame design. The factory, Viktor Gros (which later became Traction Productions), saw something in the design, which became the brands first official style, The Beat.
Over the next 40 years, Gherardi and McReynolds blazed a trail that changed the way the public viewed eyewear. A black and white portrait campaign with photographer Greg Gorman, bore the now iconic slogan, ‘A face is like a work of art. It deserves a great frame.’ It featured a diverse mix of famous faces sporting l.a.Eyeworks frames, including David Hockney, Grace Jones, Jodie Foster, Elton John, George Clinton and Pierce Brosnan. The brand even had a future depiction of a store in the film Blade Runner.
Gherardi is survived by her partner of 50 years, Rhonda Saboff; sister Heather Gherardi; nephew Jett Schuster, grand-nephew Mason Schuster and grandniece Stella Schuster.
