We had to make a magazine page as the final outcome of the first project.

I learned how to make a magazine template from a youtube tutorial, and it worked really well!

   

 

 

 

Since Roman emperor Nero, sunglasses are the unofficial symbol of coolness. If we just think of Audrey Hepburn, Peter Fonda, Janis Joplin, Lou Reed, Michael Jackson, Kurt Cobain, or any filmstars, rockstars or popstars, sunglasses have been essential accessorizes in everyday outfits.

But what does the men in the street say? „I like it, because it looks cool.”-says the girl in a mirrored Ray Ban. „I love the shape!”- another smiling in her heart-shaped ones. „I wear it because it is reflective, so people cannot see my eyes.” I am surprised, why would anyone hide their eyes? Then I remember, that I actually love to hide my ones, it makes me feel more confident, even if it’s a cloudy day.

On my primary research I wanted to find out what makes the perfect sunglasses. They definitely need to protect your eyes from the sun with a nice shape that goes well with the shape of the face, plus points if they hide the eyes properly, especially for a fair price.

During my research on the street, I realized that mirrored sunglasses have always reminded me of certain flies or bugs.  After a short shopping tour, I found the perfect mirrored pilot sunglasses, which resembled the wings of the colourful bug, Cetonia Aurata.
I started  from the idea of mixing nature with plastic in art. I started experimenting with those sunglasses, taking them apart, and recontextualize the lenses.

The lenses without frame not only looked like Cetonia wings, but also similar to fish, as I created these layers resembling the structure of a fish scale with the lenses gliding on each other.

However, I found them a bit too plastic looking for a fish scale with the mirrored top, so I decided to make them more matte.  I used to make recycled jewellery from CDs by putting them into the oven, creating vitreous enamel effect when melted. Based on this idea, I put the lenses into the oven on 250°C for a couple of minutes to see what happens. The first piece was not really successful, I left it in for too long, it looked like a piece of rainbow geode. With the second one I was more careful, I used 30 seconds and it worked. I ended up with exactly what I imagined, if not even more exciting results.

I came up with many ideas about how to make the lenses wearable in different ways, and finally I chose the collar-with-earrings set. I’m a big fan of Nora Fok’s jewellery, especially her collars, and I also have a massive earring collection at home so it seemed natural to go and pursue this idea.

First of all, I purchased more sunglasses, and used the same process on the lenses as before. I got about twenty pieces of these ‘discs’, I only needed a base for them. In the same time, we had a denim workshop at the University, about how many different ways we can use this material, so I figured it would be a good idea to experiment and create a denim basis for the collar.

I assembled them with a glue gun and the layers ran around the neck nicely like fish scales on the fish. When I finished I sewed the lenses around with beads. The whole collar looked as fancy as a peacock and actually flourished in the colours of a peacock’s feather. I ended up with putting peacock feathers between the plastic pieces, and I was pleased to see that they give the collar a soft, palatable finish. Drawing a conclusion, I believe the sunglasses project was a great thing to experiment with. It is important to keep our eyes but our mind open as well, in order to be able to think about these objects in many different ways.

 

I had so many ideas for this project, but I knew that I wanted to do something with the lenses.

I bought some sunglasses what I could experience with. First I had to separate the lenses from the frame, I never broke so many things in my life!

I knew a really cool technique what my friend used to do in high school: she put used CD-s into the oven, they got a kind of ‘enamel’ effect when they melted. She made beautiful earrings from them.

I did the same with my lenses. The very first one looked a rainbow geoid, so -however I liked it- I decided to put them into the oven only for 20 seconds.

They looked exactly like I expected, or even better.

I loved them. They looked like the wings of Cetonia Aurata!

They looked like rainbow fishscales when I layered them up!

Mirrored sunglasses has always reminded me of : Cetonia aurata.

I love this bug, it has amazing colours and shapes!

I used these pictures for my secondary research.

I made some pictures using my photos from the street.

 

I used mixed technics: kitchenfoil and mirrorfoilfor the mirror effect, paint on the top of it, pens and pencils for the background

My first project’s theme was ‘mirrored sunglasses’. I went around in the citycenter with my groupmates, took some photos for my primary research. We found out that people like “the colour”, “the shape” and mostly because”it hides their eyes”.