.specials
The LUNETTES SELECTION Experience
*Vintage Eyes, Modern Rituals
written AMANDA MORTENSON
In the quiet hum of a Berlin street, a visitor steps into LUNETTES SELECTION and enters a different time. Eyeglasses carry identity, memory, and design. Since its founding, LUNETTES SELECTION has built a world where frames communicate, spaces respond, and vision unfolds as a poetic act.
LUNETTES SELECTION emerged from a pursuit almost cinematic in its specificity: to find frames that do not yet exist in one’s wardrobe, to uncover exceptions. Its archive of never-worn vintage eyewear — salvaged from opticians’ inventories and manufacturers’ storerooms — constitutes a measured museum of form. Each piece acts as an invitation, in Berlin and across other cities, LUNETTES SELECTION gathers collectors, costume designers, and seekers of individuality who explore its “archive eyewear” with a sense of ceremony.
In 2011, LUNETTES SELECTION introduced its own line, the LUNETTES Kollektion, conceived in Berlin, handcrafted in Italy. These frames, realised in Mazzucchelli cellulose acetate, bear the same reverence for material, color, and detail that animates the vintage curation. The collection progresses with quiet confidence, never loud, tethered always to vision as a personal narrative.
LUNETTES SELECTION extends beyond eyewear into the experience between object and wearer, between object and space. Its Berlin boutiques in Mitte, Charlottenburg, and Prenzlauer Berg exist as stages for vision and interior. Each location carries shared elements—linoleum floors, a tactile palette in harmony with acetate tones—and reveals its own architecture of encounter.
The Charlottenburg store, realized by designer Oskar Kohnen, functions like a refined mise-en-scène. A pastel-green apothecary cabinet climbs to the ceiling, drawers that invite curiosity and discretion. A white-cube shell frames iconographic furnishings: a Hank Kwint side table, a Jacques Adnet rolling cart, two Pierre Paulin “Butterfly” chairs. Underfoot, restored 1970s marble floors gleam, while a sculptural lamp by Sebastian Summa asserts presence without dominance. The atmosphere carries poetry and precision, forming an architectural lens for viewing eyewear.
At the Torstrasse location, Kohnen’s transformation creates a chamber of wonder. The space unfolds as a blue-toned dialogue, where frame histories appear as curated curiosities. Marienburgerstrasse’s boutique, defined by polished concrete, card catalog–style cabinets, and vintage lighting, presents a cinematic rhythm.
Behind every frame is an eye test conducted with care and LUNETTES SELECTION reclaims the slower, handwritten craft of subjective refraction, inviting patrons into a relation with their own perception. This act aligns with the brand’s ethos that intimacy with the instrument of vision is itself part of the aesthetic.
Through its Journal, LUNETTES SELECTION narrates alliances — with makers, artists, stories. Highlights from Petites Lunettes, its children’s eyewear initiative, appear beside collaborations, archival essays, and explorations of optical heritage. The text gestures outward, placing LUNETTES in dialogue with design, film, even myopia management.
The brand speaks through calm precision, it listens, collects, edits, and opens space. Within this dialogue between object and subject, LUNETTES SELECTION shapes a quiet insistence, choosing how we see becomes a reflection.
Stepping outside, the visitor carries a trace of the place — a resonance where design, history, and vision meet. LUNETTES SELECTION exists as an interface, curated and alive to the gaze. Enjoy Yourself!
LUNETTES SELECTION Vintage and Handmade Eyewear www.lunettes-selection.de
Locations: Torstrasse 172 | Marienburgerstrasse 11 | Bleibtreustrasse 55, Berlin / Prices range from Optical frames €280, sunglasses €320, vintage archive pieces from €220.
