Waridi Eyewear is a Nairobi based eyewear studio founded by Lucy Kabuti. The studio uses discarded materials such as recycled wood from construction sites and cow horn from the meat industry to repurpose and reassign value to the materials through craft and design. Beyond traditional sunglasses, through the form of eyewear they experiment with different innovations that change how the wearer interacts with their environment.
Inside the lab
During a visit to the Lab in Nairobi I got the opportunity to observe the process of creating the sunglasses themselves. The material is first cut into the basic frame shape using a CNC machine. It is then sanded, heated and bent to create the curve of the glasses before being sanded again and engraved using a laser cutter. The lenses are individually shaped and sanded to fit the frame before the glasses are assembled, polished and finished. All materials are sourced locally as well!
(An interesting note about Cow horn)
Initially when you see a plank of cowhorn there are apparent colors and vague patterns. However, beneath the surface is somewhat unpredictable. A seemingly white and black plank could reveal shades of green and grey or be fully white. Although there are standard shades and hues that are likely to surface, it is impossible to know what exactly it will look like on the shape of the sunglasses once they have been polished and finished. Even if the same shape is repeated, the material keeps each piece unique. Waridi Eyewear works hand in hand with this variability and instead of switching to standard, predictable materials, they let the variation add to the one of a kind value of the piece.
