Hasta La Ideas

The first product to come out of a video series on upcycling

Oregon’s own wooden eyewear makers Shwood today premiered a latest sunglass collaboration with San Francisco streetwear label Huf. Made of broken skateboard decks, you can see the production process of the resulting “Six-Ply Fade” in the first experimental video on Shwood’s buzzy new site “Experiment with Nature.”

We recently caught up with Shwood founder Eric Singer to chat about “Experiment with Nature” and the consequential Huf collaboration.

How did the “Experiment with Nature” project come about?

“Experiment With Nature” has been Shwood’s tagline from the beginning. Everything from product concepts and manufacturing to packaging and branding strategies begin as an experiment in our wood shop. The EWN project was designed to share this experimental process and DIY mentality with the world. The videos aren’t simply about making sunglasses, but rather the concept of transforming everyday objects or natural resources into anything interesting really. Upcoming videos will feature everything from tools to transportation, all sharing the concept of transforming everyday objects or natural resources into interesting final products. We want to inspire others to try new things and see what works.

How did you choose the content? Specifically, how did the collaboration with Huf owner Keith Hufnagel happen?

If there is one thing we have a lot of at Shwood, it’s creativity. Sometimes it can be a struggle to stay concentrated on producing sunglasses when there are so many other projects we are dying to experiment with. So we decided to share these creative experiments with others—built a website, called up our videographer and got started on the first series, “Skateboard Shades.”

We met Keith Hufnagel and crew at a tradeshow last year and immediately took a liking to one another’s brand. We decided to partner on a collaborative project and ended up with skateboard shades. Making sunglasses from old skate decks had been something we had wanted to experiment with for a long time. So it seemed like a good excuse to make the trek down to skate with our friends at Huf.