I was recently looking for a new pair of sunglasses. How difficult it is when you live in Montreal and it is winter. I decided to take a look on World Wide Web, and search « original handcrafted hardwood eyewear » (Genius!)…

First choice of the searching engine : Shwood, a simple experiment with nature… (Curious!)

Eric Singer, the founder, came up with the idea about five years ago. He has always been an avid woodworker and the idea struck him randomly one day. So he walked into his backyard, chopped a limb off a Madrone tree and hand-carved a pair of shades from a single piece of wood. His friends thought the idea was incredibly unique, so they got to work on R&D which has led them to today : 5 gents and a crazy idea of making handcrafted wood eyewear created with the finest exotic woods. They called the small company, Shwood. Now they sell their product in about 75 locations around the world, most in skate and surf shops.

 It always makes me feel surprised to see how people are so creative! Recycling trashed decks and transform them, here is the key of a lot of imaginative artists (take a look on Skate, Recycle and Art post). Uniqueness is the word that came up in my mind when I saw the originality of these sunglasses. Why? Because of the in-house manufacturing process. Free from passing trends, the brand’s focus remains that of its roots, innovation and creation. It is more than a product, it is art.

Shwood launched a video documentary about the company heading down to LA to skate and turning a broken board into a pair of sunglasses. Thanks to Marta (one of our readers) we knew about this awesome video, created for Shwood’s blog “Experiment With Nature”, that documents the process from skating around LA to the finished product. The goal is to divert the object of his first use (skate) and give a second life to this board. Take a look !

Experiment No. 1 – Skateboard Shades from Shwood Eyewear on Vimeo.

Jessica GT