Gai Gherardi, who made fashion statements with glasses, dies at 78

Gai Gherardi, a Los Angeles optician, who with a partner attracted a celebrity clientele, pioneering the idea that glasses should not be dull, but could be fashion statements of individuality, died on March 16 at her home in Hollywood. He was 78 years old.

Her sister, Heather Gherardi, said the cause was bile cancer, which she learned she had last month.

“Glasses offer spontaneity,” Ms. Gherardi told New York Times in 1993. “They offer many changes to your face, it’s a big accessory, a big support.”

“Contacts are rigid. They are not fun,” he added. “You may see better on them. But you can’t look better at them.”

A ridiculous personality dressed in vibrant colors, Ms Gherardi opened her store, La Eyeworks, at Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles in 1979 with her friend and colleague Barbara McREynolds. Ms Gherardi has led to the design of the modern limited edition frames known for their sharp corners, unusual shapes and striking shades and are commercially available with playful names such as rooster, whirly bird and MX. Busy. In 1993, the store began using lasers to draw metal frames with designs, such as maps of southern California and the United States.

“The boxes are also an expression of pure luxury and a secret word code between like -minded people,” Dave Schilling in 2022 writes in the image, Los Angeles Times Style magazine, “signaling that you too have a sense of humor for yourself, that you are different.”

The early popularity of the store between artists, actors, architects and LGBTQ has been reinforced since the early 1980s by a printing campaign, which continues to continue in modern magazines, which presented more than 200 black and white celebrity portraits and other lamps. Photographed by Greg Gorman, they have included Chaka Khan, Rupaul, David Hockney, Debbie Harry, Grace Jones and Paul Reubens, famous for the character of Pee-Wee Herman.

The slogan of the campaign: “A person is like a work of art. Worth a large context.”

Mr Gorman said Andy Warhol had requested to be in the campaign, which began in Mr Warhol’s interview magazine and extended to other hip, fashion magazines, such as paper and details.

“Part of the challenge was to find frames that completed the person’s face,” Mr Gorman said in an interview. “Sometimes Gai will come with outrageous glasses and we would always find a way to break them down on people’s faces.”

The store’s customers have included Faye Dunaway, Lauren Bacall, Tom Cruise, Billy Idol and Carrie Fisher. Elton John, who is known for his outrageous glasses, also bought in the store, where he became a design for him in a custom color.

Following the death of Ms. Gherardi, the fashion designers council described her as “central figure in the glasses industry”. It helped the Council form a subgroup of designers in 2014 and was part of a charity business that has donated more than $ 100,000 to LGBTQ causes.

Blake Kuwehara, a glasses designer who worked with Ms. Gherardi and three more in rainbow sunglasses for the Month Pride in 2023, said in a statement that he “tightened a path to independent glass designers”, adding “he was large, polite.”

Gai Travelle Gherardi was born on July 8, 1946 in Los Angeles and raised about an hour south on Huntington beach. Her mother, Millicent (Selby) Gherardi, held a women’s fashion shop. Her father, Fabio Frank Gherardi, built houses and drove a band that called the Big Band of Fabio USA.

Gai surrounded Huntington Beach and got his first job there, in a nightclub called Golden Bear, where he reminded to see Lenny Bruce play. He met with Ms McREynolds at Huntington High School and became close friends. When Ms. McREynolds got a job at an optician store at Newport Beach in 1965, she helped Ms. Gherardi hired there.

Ms. Gherardi described the glasses for her clients as an almost mystical experience.

“I can’t explain it,” he said in a 2017 interview with the Art Matters Foundation, which was a member of the Board of Directors. “You put glasses on someone. You touch their head and look into their eyes.” He added, “the eyes and glasses and glasses began to become this way of communicating.”

But, he said, the design of the frame in its early days in the glasses was at best prosaic.

“People were wearing trucks mack on their faces then,” he told Los Angeles Times in 2002. “The choice was mainly among the pink butterfly shapes and basic models in black or turtle shell.”

During the Vietnam War, she and Ms McREynolds held meetings of counterparties and helped young people to avoid military service by providing them with recipes with recipes that were called “Wonky” Vision.

After working on the Newport Beach, Ms Gherardi took jobs in other optical stores and Ms McREynolds worked for a lens company. Still, they were dreaming of opening their own store one day. Both were certified visuals.

In 1979, they found a spot for La Eyeworks on Melrose Avenue and Ms. Gherardi’s father built the store for them.

Some of the store’s early designs came from dyeing, in different colors, a neutral 1950s pins.

Heather Gherardi, who is also visual and collaborated with her sister for 27 years, said in an interview: “She would say:” Why is it boring when you can have fun? ”

The La Eyeworks expanded to three stores, but a second store in Los Angeles closed in 2022 after 20 years and another, in Costa Mesa, managed by Heather Gherardi, closed in 2009 after 21 years.

With an influx of artists who became clients, Ms. Gherardi and Ms. McREynolds began performing monthly art exhibitions in La Eyeworks. And in 2009, the two women began hiring artists-such as Catherine Opie, Alison Saar, Barbara Kruger and Gabriela Ruiz-to convert ordinary fabrics to lenses into microfiber works.

In addition to her sister, Ms. Gherardi survives her Rhonda Saboff’s life partner and her half sisters, Michelle and Rene Gherardi. Ms McREynolds retired from the business a few years ago.

In 1984, Ms Gherardi was in Mr. Gorman’s studio in Los Angeles when Divine, Queen and Muse of Director John Waters arrived for the La Eyeworks campaign. He recalled that he was watching Divine, whose name was Harris Glenn Milstee, reached a suit, no makeup or wig. The appearance of Divine three hours later, he said, “in this fantastic pink sequine dress,” she carried her to tears.

“It was the most transformative moment,” he told Image Magazine magazine. “And part of it was this overwhelming feeling of how everyone negotiates and navigates beauty.”