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From Booze Barrels to Oak Eyewear: Shwood x Bushmills

By Rain Noe - March 12, 2012

in Sustainable Design

You've heard of beer goggles, but probably not whiskey sunglasses. Oregon-based Shwood, a company that manufactures wooden eyewear by hand in their Portland shop, partnered up with Bushmills to turn whiskey barrels into a limited-edition run of eyewear.

You can see them turning staves into shades in the stylishly-shot video below. Alas, the resultant product—which features Carl Zeiss lenses, for chrissakes—is already sold out.

"The Bushmills" by Shwood and Bodega from Shwood Eyewear on Vimeo.

Shwood has joined forces with BUSHMILLS Irish Whiskey and Boston, MA boutique, Bodega on a limited run of Shwood's "Canby" frame style, crafted from genuine BUSHMILLS Irish Whiskey barrels. Limited to 100 pieces, the White Oak used for the frames dates back over 100 years. The eyewear is packaged in a custom wooden whiskey crate, with a crowbar to pry it open and get the goods.

Based in Portland, Oregon Shwood creates handcrafted wooden eyewear using fine exotic hardwoods. Shwood's in-house manufacturing process merges precision technology with classic skilled craftsmanship to create a timeless art form. Every step from veneering and precision lens cutting, to shaping and finishing is conducted in our own Portland-based workshop to promise an entirely handcrafted eyewear piece.

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Johan Louw

8 years ago

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Yep Shwood still seems to be dominating the industry, currently amidst many rising competitors. I've seen literally hundreds of new wood sunglasses startups in the last year or two. A notable brand is Tree Tribe who plant 10 trees per sale. If you're interested in wood sunglasses checkout this awesome new review site http://woodsunglassesreview.com/

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Jeff Jenkins

12 years ago

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Wood sunglasses are all the rage. I actually had a pair of these they never fit quite right and broke after about 2 months and I could never get them replaced by shwood. Maybe the whiskey barrel makes the wood stronger or something, but they always felt flimsy.

There are a couple new companies that do this now too. Proof is coming out with cool stuff. Capital is also doing some wood shades I don't like their designs a whole lot. Waiting for the Sun seems pretty cool they are out of France and pretty Spendy. But I think I need a new pair. They probably won't be these, but maybe some from one of the new companies coming up.
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Groundmonkey

12 years ago

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I won't deny that they look flippin' shweet, but I have a problem with any Wayfarer copy pretending to not be a Wayfarer copy. Now, I know nothing about IP law, but how do they get away with this?
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