Water Glasses turn colorful frameless eyewear into wearable sculpture
Tbilisi-based studio XYZ Integrated Architecture introduces Water Glasses, a frameless and hingeless eyewear design that uses paracord to connect individual lenses for pools and beaches.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
- XYZ Integrated Architecture strips sunglasses down to lenses and paracord
- Designed specifically for pools and beaches without needing a traditional case
- Developed since 2019 in collaboration with optical lens manufacturer Divel Italia
- Available in single, double, and triple lens arrangements worn as necklaces
XYZ Integrated Architecture has reduced a familiar summer accessory to its most indispensable parts, creating a novel design called Water Glasses. Developed specifically for pools, beaches, and other locations where conventional eyewear is inconvenient, the project removes the frame, hinges, and rigid arms typically used to hold sunglasses in place. The resulting piece sits somewhere between optical equipment, a necklace, and a particularly useful piece of summer jewelry.
Instead of folding the glasses into a case whenever entering the water, the wearer can let the lenses slide naturally below the chin or remain suspended around the neck. The cord functions simultaneously as a fastening system, support, and storage mechanism, keeping the glasses attached to the body rather than abandoned beneath a towel. This straightforward solution addresses a practical problem that most conventional sunglasses leave entirely to their owners.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
Applying architectural principles of structure and material economy to a micro-scale fashion accessory highlights a refreshing approach to minimalist design. By substituting decorative hardware with precise knotting and exposed connections, the studio challenges traditional manufacturing norms and reimagines how functional objects interact with the human body.
The Tbilisi-based studio has been developing the design since 2019, applying an architectural interest in structure and material economy at a much smaller scale. Each lens is pierced and threaded directly onto the cord, making the connection between components both visible and essential. With little decorative hardware available to disguise the construction, the project relies on proportion, optical quality, and carefully positioned knots to do the work.
Water Glasses is presented in versions carrying one, two, or three sets of lenses. While the single pair operates most directly as eyewear, the extended arrangements move further into collectible design, allowing several colored lenses to hang across the neck and torso. Irregular silhouettes, translucent surfaces, and contrasting cords give the pieces an almost anatomical quality, as though a pair of sunglasses had decided that behaving like conventional eyewear was no longer especially interesting.
Photographed at the Tbilisi Olympic Pool in Georgia, the collection is shown against an environment that clarifies both its function and its more sculptural ambitions. Rounded, rippled, and knotted lens profiles overlap with the lines of the body, while vivid paracords turn the practical tether into a graphic element. Produced in collaboration with optical lens manufacturer Divel Italia, the lenses introduce technical precision to objects whose appearance frequently edges closer to contemporary jewelry.
Led by Levan Lominashvili and Ana Kachkachishvili, XYZ Integrated Architecture works across buildings, furniture, functional objects, and fashion accessories. Water Glasses brings those disciplines together in a compact object that can be worn, carried, and stored without changing form. By eliminating the secondary objects usually required to protect sunglasses, the studio proposes that the most effective case may simply be the one already hanging around the wearer's neck.
Source: designboom
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