Eyewear industry mourns loss of Gai Gherardi

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.