The latest sunglass collection, designed by Tim Van Steenbergen, is inspired by film noir
Lights, Camera, Action! theo is shooting their film noir. For the latest collection of sunglasses, designer Tim Van Steenbergen took inspiration from his personal background. Tim’s not only a fashion designer, he’s also built a full-fledged career as a costume designer. This means he spends a lot of time on film and theatre sets.
He’s a great admirer of directors such as John Huston and Fritz Lang who helped to define the film noir. Shot in black and white, the characters inhabit a shadowy world, rife with crime. But also imbued with glamour, mystery and an air of romance.
The film noir was a huge success in the 1940s and 50s, not least because of the ‘femmes fatales’. It was an important era for ‘womanhood’, with growing independence and ambition. Their leading man on the silver screen was often depicted as a lonely, somewhat cynical antihero. Moods of melancholy, disillusionment and paranoia are expressed in an intriguing visual style which Tim has been able to reinvent from a positive angle, resulting in a fabulous collection of sunglasses.
High Contrast
The glasses are big, glamorous and the colour palette is particularly striking for the lack of bright colours. Warm, appealing tones are included in the range, however. They emphasise the play of shadows, which is so much the signature of a film noir.
Each model combines glossy acetate with matte details, while straight lines contrast with curves, thick with thin, and even the shape of the lenses refuses to follow the shape of the frames. The frames are unicolour, but with a pleasing colour detail: the earpiece fades out in a different colour from the collection.
Femmes Fatales
Think Rita Hayworth, Joan Crawford and Ava Gardner: they would wear glasses like these. As a small homage to these leading ladies, the names of the glasses were created by combining the title of a film noir with the name of the femme fatale in the film.
