Zanzan is a sunglasses brand
with a difference, they are English, arguably the first for over four
decades according to Gareth Townshend and Megan Trimble the design duo
behind the brand. Zanzan is not only a region in West Africa, the
designers lead us to believe that it is also an expressive term for the
euphoria encountered when wearing a stylish outfit that brings you
pleasure. Handcrafted in France using Carl Zeiss vision sun lens the
spring summer 09 range comes in four individually inspired designs
Rubirosa, Black Rio, Zazou and Le Sept each style is strictly limited
to 100 pairs.
Dazed Digital: Tell us about the significance of English sunglasses...
Gareth Townshend and Megan Trimble: There
are no new sunglasses brands here. None of note since the Sixties in
fact. We don’t do sunglasses in England which is just silly because we
all love them and nowadays they are a frivolous item more than a
functional one.
The framemaking industry in England is dead
and if you want to make high quality sunglasses you need to be prepared
to stagger round the Dolomite Mountains in a suit for three years. Like
I did. Then you have to find a nice French framemaker who doesn’t have
utter contempt for the English. Some of the first people we met spoke
Ladin!! I’d never even heard of this language. These people reserved
their contempt for the Swiss, Italians, French and Germans.
These
barriers to entry (The Alps/Gallic sniffery) conspire to discount
English design talent from being applied to sunglasses. And the product
in general suffers because the Brits aren’t there to lead this
neglected accessory into battle. This is a licensing industry.
Virtually none of the big brands make their own sunglasses. Every brand
you can imagine gets churned out of the same factory. There isn’t one
contemporary sunglasses brand that inspires a devoted following is
there? It’s a fashion blind spot that simply wouldn’t be tolerated in
shoes, handbags, jewelery.
Dazed Digital: Your collection references many eras. Was this intentional? Why?
Gareth Townshend and Megan Trimble: It
was. We wanted to quote the past as a natural antidote to the present.
To annex it. But it’s a process of acculturation rather than
colonisation. At root is a love of these eras. A lot of the references
allude to authentic style movements that grew out of the ground for
reasons other than commerce. This authenticity appeals. Especially when
they looked so good. It’s a bit romantic and sentimental but so what?
It’s
a real shame that these movements are no longer rolling off the
production line. Nowadays it’s probably impossible for a brand to
represent a nation in the way that Armani or YSL or Ralph Lauren did.
What do we have to add to Vivienne Westwood’s version of Englishness?
So it’s natural to turn to whatever turns you on. We really just wanted
to point to certain periods and align ourselves with their distinctive
characteristics; the kaleidoscopic sunburst of the tropicalistas in
early 70s Brazil, the elegant intriguers of YSL’s court as evoked by
Alicia Drake in The Beautiful Fall etc.
Dazed Digital: Which modern icons do you associate with your range?
Gareth Townshend and Megan Trimble: None but there are plenty of
people we wholeheartedly admire in other fields - Frédéric Malle, Tim
Walker, Giles Deacon, Theodore Zeldin, Neil Krug and Manolo Blahnik for
starters. Bernard Arnault. Domenico De Sole. Paul Smith. Going back
there’s YSL/Pierre Bergé, Porfirio Rubirosa, Tony Duquette, Simone de
Beauvoir, Jean Genet, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Stéphane Audran, Aldo Gucci,
Bernard Arnault, Tommy Nutter.
Zanzan are available exclusively online at farfetch.
