Carla Colour Eyewear

An artsy new unisex line by self-taught designer Carla Robertson

1 July 2015

Brisbane-raised and Brooklyn-based Carla Robertson had been working as a television producer for about 15 years until a few major life events put everything into focus. “I’ve always dreamed about doing a line of eyewear—and then I got pregnant with twins and I was like, ‘This is my chance to do something different,'” she tells CH. Robertson drew up a sketch of a pair of glasses that she had always wanted to wear and things started developing quickly—she was seven months pregnant while organizing the photoshoot—and Carla Colour ended up launching right around the time she gave birth in November 2014. “It was sort of three babies at once,” she laughs.

“I’ve been interested in vintage eyewear, since years and years ago—ever since I needed to wear glasses,” says Robertson. She fondly remembers her first pair of vintage frames, crystal-colored acetate in a cat-eye shape with gold highlights, found in Amsterdam. Her friends poked fun at her for the grandma look, she recalls with a laugh, “But I just can’t wear a standard pair of eyewear.”

Carla Colour’s debut collection is refreshingly limited to one circular style, in three different acetate colors: an electric blue, an acid orange and deep purple. Robertson also worked with her supplier to create two bespoke lens colors (purple and green). “It was born out of color theory class I did: the concept of two colors interacting. Like the Bauhaus movement, where there’s one color inside and there’s a color on the outside and how that interacts your impression of each color.”

It’s intriguing to learn that Robertson is self-taught, with no formal background in design or art. And by simply bringing to life what she aesthetically craved, Robertson makes Carla Colour stand out from other budding (and already established) eyewear brands.