Vinylize

Zachary Tipton’s eyesight was failing while he studied in Seattle, so he decided to make his own glasses — experimenting with plastics until he stumbled on his father’s old record collection in the garage. His very first frame was hand-cut from a Creedence Clearwater Revival vinyl on a pin router and formed in his mother’s oven.

He teamed up with his brother Zoltan to found Tipton Eyeworks, still handcrafting every frame in Budapest from genuine recycled vinyl records — more than three tons a year. Miles Davis’s family personally commissioned Vinylize to reinterpret his 1958 frame, a rare honour for a brand that started life as one man’s garage experiment.

Part of the wider world of independent eyewear — not necessarily something we carry, but always something we’re happy to talk about.