Daily Front Row

2010 May 24

Perfect Vision

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Filipa Fina, Jason Wu
WILL RAGOZZINO/PatrickMcMullan.com View Gallery

(NEW YORK) Boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses...? So goes that cruel childhood ditty, but clearly those girls weren’t wearing Jason Wu spectacles. Thursday night, Wu along with Filipa Fino hosted a cocktail party at Ilori to celebrate the Modo for Jason Wu 2010 optical and sunglass collection. Friends including Hamish Bowles and Mary Alice Stephenson made it down to SoHo to toast the designer and try on some specs.

Just observing the rows and rows of luxe eyeglasses and sunglasses simply wasn’t enough. The crowd gave into temptation, and tried on pair after pair, flashing their best smile into hand mirrors. Even the designer himself modeled a few different pairs. “Oh, you’ve got to try this one,” he would say to friends, reaching for a pair of square frames. The night was especially important, as Jason Wu’s opticals are the first that have been sold at Ilori. “It was always just sunglasses up until now,” explained Wu. “I wear contacts all the time because I’m really nearsighted, and I’ve always wanted more fashionable optical options, and so that’s why I decided to do it. After I did the sunglasses collection and it was so successful, I knew this was the next step.”

The designer explained that he used to see eyeglasses as fashion for inside the house, only. “I would only wear my glasses at home, but now I can wear them out proudly all the time!” And where is Wu’s favorite sunny place to wear his shades? “Where is there not a good place to wear sunglasses?” he asked. He laughed, and admitted he wears his even when it’s dimly lit. “The only downside? Sometimes it does get hard to see!”
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