Hasta La Ideas

Vidal Erkohen finds inspiration in Ottoman tile patterns in his newest limited edition eyewear collection

For Turkish companies RVS and the Iznik Foundation, heritage is everything. Vidal Erkohen of RVS eyewear made his name by collecting vintage glasses, starting with his father’s. “I remember one trip that [my father] came back from Italy wearing a folding pair of Persols, and I fell in love with the character the frames gave him,” Erkohen told us in a video we made with him earlier this year. Inspired by the quality he found in the vintage frames he began collecting and selling, Vidal decided to launch his own line of acetate glasses, which are hand-made in Istanbul.

Now he’s teamed up with an unlikely but brilliant bedfellow, the Iznik Foundation, which is dedicated to reviving Ottoman quartz tile-making, a millennia-old artform that was lost for hundreds of years.

Erkohen’s handmade glasses are known for their vivid colors and signature styling; the Iznik Collection brings a taste of Islamic tile to the world of couture accessories. With each item hand-inspected by Erkohen himself—the collaboration is limited to only 20 pieces of each of the seven sun and optical styles.

The frames are available for $599 at RVS by V stockists worldwide.