Following on from the success of 237, the slim framed optical line released last summer, Oscar Magnuson is proud to announce the launch of 237 sunglasses. The three styles are borrowed from the most popular optical frames and are pleasingly distinct from each other. A fifties-inspired circular frame compliments an aviator style and an easy-to-wear traditional rectangular shape. All three designs come in the same four colours: traditional brown, tawny gold, colour popping turquoise and the Oscar Magnuson blue. Lenses are faded for extra glamour.

237 is named after the address of Oscar Magnuson’s collaborative gallery space in New York, 237 Eldridge Street, LES. Simple and pure, the line is a distilled version of the Oscar Magnuson look. Slim frames make the statement shapes easy to wear and each style comes in the same range of colours.

Eldridge Optician / Fruit and Flower Deli is pleased to present "Lesser-Known Surrealist Drawings " the first solo show in Scandinavia by American artist John Kleckner.

With "Lesser-Known Surrealist Drawings " Kleckner presents a new body of work, a series of intricate and suggestive collages made with devoted care and sense for craft and image culture, playing with appearances and expectations. The new collages carry some of the same attributes as his earlier hand drawn works, and feature the elaborate and precise ink etching like drawing, of birds, flies etc, but paired with an experimental approach on paper, its different materialities, and collage techniques combined with spray paint, graphite, and expressionist impasto painting. The new work remains in the same suggestive domain that is characteristic for Kleckner's previous work, but the richness of the detailed drawings is now replaced partly with a broader treat on the work itself, and its material aesthetic qualities. The collages are therefore not only assemblages of images but of techniques and visual qualities.

The title of the show refers to use of a specific surrealist material of lesser known surrealist artists, but also to the development of this new series of work, which is lesser known to his audience. In his previous work.

Strong identities and colourful personalities are central to the Oscar Magnuson philosophy – stylist Jonas Hallberg personifies both with added star quality and glamour. Jonas Hallberg is a Swedish stylist based in Hollywood, where he dresses the A-list crowd in-between fashion shoots and his own TV program - ‘super stylisten Jonas’. Celia Ingesson meets Jonas to talk about his career, fashion and his professional advice on – how to shop for shades?

Go to iTunes store or click the following link:
http://itunes.apple.com/se/app/oscar-magnuson-spectacle-collection/id411...

As well as characters who have led the way in culture and art, thought and literature, here at Oscar Magnuson we also like to pay homage to heroes of design. Nisse Strinning created the String bookshelf system with his wife back in 1949 for a contest held by Bonnier public library. Illustrating the perfect balance of form and function, it helped cement Strinning’s place in history as a founding member of the Scandinavian Design movement.

The key to the String shelving system is flexibility, one can continuously add to it as a book collection grows. That’s function. But it also attracts in terms of form - it has an aesthetically pleasing simplicity. Oscar Magnuson frames follow a similar conceptual path with an extra dollop of storytelling. Each is influenced by and named after wonderfully inspiring people, such as Strinning.

WILLIAM

Oscar Magnuson frames aren’t arbitrarily named. Each is inspired by an individual and reflects their story, era and way of life. Oscar Magnuson himself explained in a recent interview, “I believe that whatever product you design, it is the references you put into the object that create the object.”

As Oscar Magnuson got to know the artist and poet Karl Holmqvist(2), his interest in beatnik culture increased. This season’s frame William is born of this influence; its namesake is one of the founding fathers of the Beat movement, William Burroughs.

It takes an astoundingly original mind to create a new way of thinking, a new form of literature and the seedlings of a fresh culture. Burroughs was a typical genius – a tortured soul in constant struggle. Dogged by mental health problems, heroine addiction, tragic events (he accidentally shot and killed his wife), Burroughs led a lifestyle to be wondered at. And written about. His 18 novels and novellas, six collections of short stories and four collections of essays are largely autobiographical.

In 1943 Burroughs, along with his friends Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac lived a subversive existence that questioned and worked against the moral, political and economic systems of American society. They used drugs, dabbled in alternative forms of sexuality, rejected materialism and focused on simply ‘being’, living in the present moment. All three wrote. It is these incredible outpourings of literature and thought that founded the countercultural Beat movement and in turn led to the hippie wave of the 1960s. These men bravely struck out on a new path of thought, laying the way for the freedom and ease of expression we have today.

William Burroughs lived to be 83 and never lost his fascinating life perspective. His originality may have been a burden to him, but for us and countless others, it is an inspiration.

We're proud to announce that Oscar Magnuson is the Designer of the Month at the fine eyewear blog Eyestylist. Click the link below to read the interview:

http://www.eyestylist.com/category/designer-of-the-month/

What do William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Bernard Henri-Lévy have in common? All were or are strident in their beliefs, progressive thinkers and prolific producers of new ideas. They have also all inspired Oscar Magnuson
S/S 2012 frames. View this seasons new Oscar Magnuson frames here: http://www.oscarmagnuson.com/spectacles/

Visit us at stand stand 103, Hall 4.
Willkommen!

Eldridge Optician is proud to host Fruit & Flower Deli and their first solo exhibition Källa (Spring), Snöfrid et les contre espaces with Ylva Ogland. The exhibition is made in collaboration with Galleri Charlotte Lund in Stockholm where the exhibition Speglad källa (Mirrored Spring), Snöfrid et les contre espaces by the artist is on view during the same time period.