Since our inception back in 2013, we’ve collected raw and incomplete frames and parts from different eras, inspiring us to assemble and finish these gems by hand ourselves instead of seeing them waste away. 10 years later, through the FRONTs project, we handcraft frames using deadstock parts destined to be forgotten, trying to avoid new materials and creating a unique and unexpected blend of history. All that, in our basement here in Brussels. 

With the team focusing on repairs, hacks and restorations in recent years, we’ve saved some pretty beat-up frames from extreme mishandling cases and got more in touch with our own pieces. Through this experience, we’ve improved our understanding of how glasses feel under stress and of defining and improving each part’s longevity. And with this knowledge we’ve built over time and with insights from fellow co-nerds to better our machine mastery and measurements, we finally got the confidence to embark on this project.

Unboxing an unexpected treasure

After a dig, between customers or repairs, we always find a moment to gather around and hide in the stockroom for an unboxing session. Sometimes, we know exactly what we’re about to find, and other times it can be a bit of a surprise with exciting pépites, while never being really safe from some strong disappointments too.
On this day of August 2023, it was an unmarked crate that arrived at our door. We took it downstairs and we can safely say it was unlike anything we’ve seen before.

A layer of newspaper from April 1965 reading “Le Progrès”, “OYONNAX” was wrapping the content underneath: hundreds of flat and smooth, neatly stacked reddish translucent plates of what could be an early plastic, injected celluloïd or acetate. All the same size, flat with a small central bump, thin and light, yet sturdy. We counted them: 220 pieces of crown-pantos fronts from the 1940s-50s.

Spoiler, only about fifty would make the cut.

All we knew was that we had some mid-century frame fronts in our stockroom now and although we knew exactly what our end goal was, we had yet to determine how to get there as we didn’t have all the knowledge nor tools to work on them. Also, some pretty major parts *cough* all of them *cough* were missing. So on we went for another deadstock quest for temples, hinges and things as such, while Mathias worked on honing his workshop and skills.

Celluloid isn’t perfect, it emits quite a strong and distinctive camphor smell and requires strict conservation conditions. Not so incidentally, it was known to have spontaneously sparked a fire or two (or more), hence its later replacement by acetate: the non-flammable and less chemical now-industry-standard cousin.
Back to our frames: due to the scarcity of the material, it was pretty unlikely that the fronts we had were of organic ivory or shell. And a box full of intact-looking celluloid frames without that ‘baume du tigre’ aroma seemed then a bit too good to be true. But they did feel quite silkier than acetate. So, we knew what we had to do, and after listening to our inner-pyromaniac tendencies (with an extinguisher close-by of course), we concluded that indeed, we had authentic 1940’s celluloid parts in our burnt-up hands.

Another find: Temples and hinges

During our quest for smaller parts, we aimed to stick to a maximum of older temples, hinges and other components, which complicated our search a bit… You know, landing on a crate of forgotten fronts is already a pretty uncommon thing, so we weren’t really expecting to find another lot with the remaining items and build-your-own-frame manual included, that’s for sure.

Nonetheless, it’s kind of what happened, and it felt almost like a fever-dream when a few months after sending us the fronts, the same fixer from Lyon gave us a call.

‘ – I have temples, he said.
– We’ll take ’em all, we replied.’
And there we were, swimming in a sea of blondes and ambers, blues, lilacs and other bright ‘poissons’ … thousands and thousands of multicoloured, left and right sides all together, raw and unsorted 1970’s acetate temples.

While sorting all of the pieces we had by material, colour, shape and size, we searched for the remaining subcomponents; and it’s on our way to Morez for our usual glasses stock trips that we stumbled on a lot of locally manufactured mid-century hinges, screws and rivets. And then boom, our luck kept on coming: another beautiful box landed at our feet, adding to our collection, this time with some panto and square-shaped acetate fronts that we suspect come from Morbier’s Bourgeois.

With all the elements finally available and displayed on our desk, it was now a matter of learning, crafting, trying and failing, trying again, asking for help and finally getting there…Eventually.

Let’s get cooking

If you’ve been at Bidules, chances are you’ve seen Mathias cause he’s been a key member of Bidules since Day 1 of the Ravenstein store. Today, he is the repair/restoration final boss here, so we sought his insights and observations on the project.

Throughout our digs, we’ve had our fair share of ill-conserved, cracked and dried-up frames, some going back a century. This revealed that many of the fronts were in worse condition than expected. Some were also much thinner, and others had prior modifications that didn’t fit our current assembly process. So aside they went for future testing and experimentations. And just like that, after careful selection, we went from 220 parts from that first crate to way, way less, and repeated the process for the second box and temples.

So we’ve gathered, felt and measured. The following insertion steps done hand in hand with our beloved tools, are really the ones that can make or break a frame. Literally. Afterwards, once the drilling, melting, piercing, drying and waiting are done, the dismantled pieces are just shy of becoming a pair of glasses, leaving only some finishing and shaping ahead.

Now, these next few steps apply to every single one of our frames, regardless of their initial condition.
Downstairs, the finishing process begins with a gentle rumble and a high-pitched hum as the polisher’s wax-covered wheels work on the front piece and temples. The buffing starts and occasionally stops for Mathias to inspect, wipe off the residue and go back in. One step to the right and the shammy-leather takes the wheel to give the parts their final shine.

Put the pieces back together, a wee bit more filing, heat up the frame, arch out the front, bend the temples to give their true shape, and voilà. Some pretty nice frickin’ glasses

With each individual front, temple and hinge having their independent technical restrictions, every frame assembly goes through a specific process to ensure good part-to-part compatibility. And with each part’s stock being limited, it implies having to adapt and rethink every step of each pair we assemble with experimentations and different techniques: whether it’s on the design of the temples, their angles, the placement of the hinges, a front’s specific shape etc. – all by hand. Even when we have a handful of the same set of front and temples (and therefore make multiples of one model) there are variations in the assembly work itself making in the end every frame unique.

✦ “Will you make sunnies?” ✦

✦ “Are you going to change styles, work on more modern shapes throughout FRONTs ?” ✦

Maybe, if we find a stash of high quality 90’s speedy parts, we might. But we don’t count on that tbh. Realistically speaking, finding well-made parts is becoming increasingly rare as quality materials and standards have very quickly turned to sh*t (it’s not like it’s a niche problem, eh).

Looking back, looking ahead

Good things take time: good projects, good digs, good frames (and good blog posts too). It’s been a little over a year since we started working on FRONTs and we gotta say our excitement has yet to wane. We landed on more mystery lots since, which allowed us to explore even more, and so far we’ve finished about twenty frames now. Maybe more? It’s a bit hectic here, they leave almost as soon as we put them out for people to see, so we missed on a few frames that didn’t get shot before they were gone. We can’t complain here, everyone seems as psyched as we are when we blab about it all, as it even resulted in quite a few interesting EYES…

To make this project last, we can only wish for more digs, more FRONTs, and more visually impaired people who will love them as much as we do.