BIG HORN
With Summer here, no outfit is complete without the right pair on sunglasses. You have two options, 1 pair you put all your trust into to get you through the season and fit with multiple outfits or you get a collection and mix your eye-wear. Either way there is one brand that'll be able to offer you both, BIG HORN, and this month we sat down with them to talk about launching the brand and choosing their styles.
Hello Kevin, for those who haven't come across your brand 'BIG HORN', could you tell us a little about who BIG HORN is? BIG HORN is designer brand on eye-wear. I am the designer for the eye-wear designs on the brand. The mission is designing eye-wear to people and creating trend that people can use eye-wear to have mix-and-match with their own style for dressing and create fashion trend. BIG HORN has different collections (including unique, stylish, fashion, and lifestyle) to fulfil different people’ needs. The styles are unisex.
What was your motivation behind launching your own sunglasses brand? I work in eye-wear industry over 10 years. When I was working on this industry, I found that there have many brands which they were doing the same thing. The styles were similar. They all were selling the popular styles only, just brands were different. People said that there had no choice, but except brands. People felt so boring. This was not only talking about 1 year to find such situation. In fact, we were talking about 4 years at least during my researches. As a result, I started to do my own brand with my own designs to make choices for people. I believe that people could have their own choices, and they could create their own trend and fashion by using different eye-wear designs. It is because eye-wear is one of the important fashion accessories.
When you decided to launch, where did you start? I started to launch my own brand as design is very important for my brand. This is my brand image and spirits. Therefore, I learnt different fashion knowledge, concept, trend, and inspirations from different fashion designers, stylists, and magazine editors in Hong Kong, New York, London, and Milan respectively. Of course, I learnt more eye-wear design technique and concept from Italian designers too. Their information and advice is valuable to me that I could know how to make my own designs for people. People is the most important things for me. In other words, I started from people.
When it comes to designs, where do you find your inspiration? I never try to follow a trend or fashion, even I always read and learn from different magazines, forum, and data, including WGSN, WWD, Vogue, GQ, etc. It is because I am working to create trend for people by using my eye-wear. I read them, because I have to know what the brands are doing. Meanwhile, I can find the gap to create my designs to satisfy people’ needs. As a result, my inspiration always come from the researches. Never stop to know, never stop to learn, and then create new designs for people.
What are your creative processes like? Do they change from collection to collection? BIG HORN mainly has 4 different collections, including Fashion Creative Collection, Extravaganza Collection, Premium Collection, and BIG HORN plus respectively. Design concepts under different collections are different. You could read the below info that you must know what the different on each collection is. Fashion Creative Collection is unique. I design this collection by using outstanding inspiration concept to do. It is because this collection launch 1 time a year, and there have 3 designs on each year only. Each design always produce 5 pieces only. It is totally presented about the concept for this collection. Extravaganza Collection is stylish. I design this collection as based on the data from the researches. This collection mainly present stylish items (i.e. Avant-garde items). People could select this collection to show off themselves and make their own styling. Also, they could wear our designs to make the new trend and fashion. Premium Collection is fashion. Designs are fashion, but not creative. People could be easier to carry and design with trendy. Bring out your own fashion and trend. BIG HORN plus is lifestyle. Designs are simply style. People could wear in anywhere and anytime. Just depending how they do mix-and-match.
Where did your inspiration for the name 'BIG HORN' come from? BIG HORN came from the logo itself actually. Basically, I wanted to have the animal which it could present about my brand image and concept. Therefore, I selected Rhinoceros. For my brand, I am not only use the image of Rhinoceros, because I wanted to present about “Outstanding”, “Unique”, “Creative”, and “Strong”. Therefore, I enlarged the size of the horn on Rhinoceros image. When people look for my logo, they could be easier to feel about my brand image and concept. Rhinoceros means “Strong”. Enlarged the horn on the Rhinoceros mean “Creative”, “Unique”, and “Outstanding”. After confirming the logo design, I decided to have the brand name as more easier to remember and easier to know when they look for the logo. Actually, there have many people to know about my brand name when they look for the logo.
How does one choose the 'Perfect' sunglasses? I believe that people choose sunglasses because of the quality of the sun lenses, not just the frames. Therefore, we always select the sun lenses with high quality on our products. Now, we just collaborated with Carl Zeiss to develop the collection by using their sun lenses. Such collaboration is important for us, also important for our customers. It is because this is use for protecting their perfect eyes. On the other hand, the design is the second important things for our customers. Many people love our sunglasses, because of designs. They could select different styles or their own tastes from our collections as per their needs. They are happy to select eye-wear from our collections, we always be happy to do that for them. By the way, the fitting is the third issue to select “Perfect” sunglasses. It is because people cannot wear that if the fitting is not good. Therefore, we design our eye-wear by using a lot of data on our development. We want to develop “Perfect” sunglasses for people which eye-wear are good fit for them, and feel comfortable. Nowadays, the sustainability is very important issue too. Therefore, we started to use bio-acetates on all our new products since Year 2018. We love designs and fashion, and we also love our earth and environment, especially for our next generations. By combining all the above, it is the reason why people select the “Perfect” sunglasses” from us. Also, we believe that this is the “Perfect” sunglasses for people.
How important would you say, Sunglasses are to someone's outfit? I love stand or sit around on the street in different countries to see what people wear and how people use accessories. I found that many women love to wear different Jewellery, including bracelet, ear ring, necklace, and eye-wear. Men mainly love to wear sunglasses. This kind of styling is very hot in Europe and U.S.. However, Eye-wear always the main accessories to attract people eyes. Eye is the soul for people. Many people look for people as always look for their eyes first. Therefore, many women wear different jewellery for themselves, but people must look for them on their sunglasses first. As a result, sunglasses is the main item for both women and men. It is caused that designs on eye-wear is always important. If eye-wear with designs, it could be more attractive and good for styling to present your own character and attitude.
How many pairs of sunglasses do you believe someone should have? Eye-wear was not the fashion accessories in the past. When I was young, no people talk about eye-wear, they almost talked about fashion apparel only. Therefore, people had 1 or 2 pairs sunglasses for themselves only, because they used that for outdoor activities. Today, eye-wear is one of the main fashion accessions. Many people have at least 10 - 20 pairs different styles of sunglasses for daily use. Depending on different occasions, people will wear sunglasses by mix-and-match. It is because sunglasses is not just for protection, this is the fashion now. I know some celebrities, they have around 100 - 150 pairs sunglasses. This is not joking, but this is the fact. People love sunglasses, and they wear that to show off their own character.
Here at BIG HORN Sunglasses stocked? For BIG HORN sunglasses, we stocked in UK, China, and Hong Kong respectively. However, we mainly sell online, because this is the trend for the sales, especially the last 2 years. Many countries locked down, and people cannot walk around in the city or travel. This is the great option and the trend for them to shop online. We would hope to increase the volume on this for sales.
Can you tell us about any upcoming collections? Our upcoming collections will use Carl Zeiss sun lenses, because we just confirmed the co-branding project with Carl Zeiss. Hope to bring more and more for people, not only designs.
You can shop the full range from BIG HORN over at bighornhk.com
