We’ve always been huge fans of Berlin eyewear label ic! berlin. After the success of the label’s collaboration with designer Luisa Hecking, with which the laser engraved sunnies were a big hit around the globe, ic! berlin returns with another stunning offering.
Known for its patented hinge design which makes the label’s eyewear light and highly durable, you can now get your hands on eight new models in four fantastic new colours: electric violet, electric light blue, electric turquoise and electric magenta. As usual, ic! berlin is in the forefront of eyewear innovation: this collection uses PVD coating and extra thin layer of crystals is deposited to the metal to reflect certain light wavelengths. The layer is also ten times thinner than a human hair, and doesn’t tarnish or scratch.
Wanna find out more about this new range? Thomas Bochmann, the Technical Director of ic! berlin’s Innovation Department has a few things to share…
What is PVD coating?
PVD stands for Physical Vapor Deposition and is a vacuum-based coating process, used specifically in the manufacturing of heavy machinery as well as for parts exposed to heavy wear such as drills and milling cutters.
Why use PVD coating for glasses?
PVD coating is perfect for our frames, since the patented ic! berlin hinge has bigger contact and sliding surfaces than common hinges with screws. The hard and friction- reducing PVD coating can be applied as a covering layer less than one thousandth of a millimeter thin and makes the hinge therefore easy to manipulate and wear resistant.
What’s the innovation about?
From the technical point of view, it wasn’t possible, until now, to coat stainless steel in such a way as to obtain really vibrant energetic colours. In collaboration with one of our suppliers, the ic! berlin electric! innovation department has a developed this new coating technique that enables metal coating in nearly all the colours of the known spectrum, just like a rainbow.
How are those new colours created?
In the same way a prism breaks the light in individual light waves and thus reflecting the different colours of the rainbow, the smallest crystal parts refract and reflect the light – depending on the nanometric layer construction – in one specific wave length.
What was the biggest challenge?
The development of PVD colour coating was a complex process, because the crystal layers have to be applied perfectly evenly over the whole surface, otherwise the reflecting light waves change specific colour tones and those colour tones could be perceived partially differently as originally intended.
For the more feminine ladies, ic! berlin has also launched six new designs to suit your style. Made of acetate and sheet metal with a 23-carat rose-gold coating, these models have classic shapes of pant and cat-eye. They also have a brushed rough acetate finish with a feminine ‘slender golf’ temple. Get your pair in olive, blue or black.
