Blake Kuwahara

Kuwahara’s design inspiration was initially driven by aesthetics and a desire to fulfill his own design needs and those in his social circle. “Like many people I know, I straddle both the artistic and business worlds. Many of us struggled to find suitable eyewear, hence the prototype I designed for myself,” says Kuwahara, who wore the prototype one evening while dining with a photographer friend. The friend pointed out that she was seeking a pair of eyewear that was stylish but understated with an edge, just like the pair he was wearing. “From that dinner conversation came the inspiration and proverbial push for launching my signature brand—a collection of frames that are a mash-up of my colliding aesthetics with special attention paid to sculpting and tactility. They are artful but wearable.” 

Each frame in the Blake Kuwahara Eyewear Collection has a unique inner silhouette encased in an unexpectedly fresh outer shape. Through a laborious, handmade process, the seamless fusion of two separate frames and the juxtaposition of contrasting form and color create a design tension that is thoroughly modern yet comfortably familiar.

Kuwahara’s bold experimentation and innovation have gained him a following in the fashion media and has been profiled in Vogue, ELLE, Bazaar, GQ, In Style, and Esquire and has been seen on E!, Access Hollywood, MTV, and CNN. Buzz magazine voted Kuwahara one of the “100 Coolest People in Los Angeles” and Detour magazine called him, “a gifted talent, blessed with savvy and unmistakable sense of style.”

A celebrity favorite, Kuwahara’s designs are worn by Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Halle Berry, Robert Downey, Jr., Will Smith, Samuel L. Jackson, Casey Affleck, Slash, and Charlize Theron among many others.