They're hip and haute. These are words not usually reserved for wood flooring contractors-and that'll probably never change-but for obvious reasons these handcrafted sunglasses made by the Portland, Ore.-based Shwood (www.shwoodshop.com) should appeal to woodophiles.
"Shwoods really set you apart in a crowd of people-in a good way-unlike any other type of sunglasses out there," said Eric Singer, the company's creative director and co-founder. Singer and co-founder Taylor Murray first kicked around the idea of hand-crafting sunglasses from wood some years back, when they were on a snowboarding tour with a group of friends, according to Wired magazine. The company gained steam, and today it is churning out more than 150 pairs of sunglasses a day.
So, why wood? "At first, to fulfill the personal need to make something different, you know? Like taking a common object and completely re-working it from the ground up," Singer said. "Then later, to fulfill the needs of fashion-focused people who desire a unique look."
The company name came from an inside joke the group of friends used to talk about. They were familiar with an old hotel called The Ashwood, which was missing an A on its sign. At snowboard contests, they would then joke they were sponsored by a company called "Shwood." After he started making sunglasses, he picked up the name and it stuck: "It was an opportunity to make the myth of something that didn't exist into reality," Singer said.
It took Singer and his friends some time to get their footing in the manufacturing world. None of them had backgrounds in engineering, manufacturing or mass-production when they first started. Today, they now have the process down pat: They CNC-cut the frames and hand-glue the layers together-they compare it to binding together a skateboard, but it's akin to building engineered flooring, too-then they sand, finish and test the eyewear.
Portland's DIY ethos is firm in Shwood. The company's founders are all snowboarders-cum-manufacturers, and so it's fitting its 2012 Lookbook is prefaced with this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "All life is an experiment."
