- By
- Joshua Glass
- Drawing by
- Gustaf von Arbin
MANIFESTO SUNGLASSES
Polar night is the geographical event of darkness that lumbers over twenty-four hours in one constant period. The phenomenon is typically limited to latitudinal extremes, washing Kiruna—the northernmost town in Sweden—for upwards of four weeks of no sunrise. Further south, Stockholm is without its northern neighbor’s demanding plunges of total nighttime, but it often sees as little as four hours of sun a day the bulk of the year. It’s in this climate, interestingly enough, that Manifesto, a young sunglass atelier honed by Martin and Karin Norrlind, began its practice. “When it’s dark outside for more than half of the year, our work becomes pretty abstract. It gives a certain distance to the products,” says Martin. “It makes us think of [the sunglasses] more as sculptures than as everyday objects.”
The couple met in 2011 through the shared brutality of helping a friend move houses. Trapped inside the van during a traffic standstill, the two bonded over adjacent disciplines, he a graphic designer and she of a theoretical background within art and fashion. “After that, we started Manifesto as we were very intrigued about how glasses so instantly can transform one’s appearance,” Martin says. “We wanted glasses that were simple and more object-like without any logos or ornaments.”
Today, the duo advances on that same path, offering small-batch, handmade sets of eclectic eyewear that reference common inspirations. Styles focus on the basics of shapes and colors, citing the freedom of early modernism like Bauhaus with the rebelliousness of Dadaism and some key principles of later Minimalists like Donald Judd. Martin points to Scandinavian architects too—Alvar Aalto and Gunnar Asplund—but admits “their work is a bit too serious and sti for us to embrace fully.” From the shadows of Manifesto’s thoughts, it’s that whimsy that invariably shines.
Manifesto is available at TENOVERSIX, Los Angeles, and The Conran Shop, London. For more information, please visit Manifesto-Sunglasses.com.
- By
- Joshua Glass
- Drawing by
- Gustaf von Arbin
