SUNGLASSES DESIGNED TO STAY CLOSE TO THE WATER
XYZ Integrated Architecture reduces a familiar summer accessory to its most indispensable parts. Developed specifically for pools, beaches, and other places where conventional eyewear tends to become inconvenient, Water Glasses combines individual lenses with lengths of paracord, removing the frame, hinges, and rigid arms normally used to hold sunglasses in place. The result sits somewhere between optical equipment, necklace, and a particularly useful piece of summer jewelry.
Instead of being folded into a case whenever the wearer enters the water, the lenses slide naturally below the chin or remain suspended around the neck. The cord therefore works simultaneously as fastening system, support, and storage, keeping the glasses attached to the body rather than abandoned beneath a towel. It is a straightforward solution to a problem most sunglasses appear content to leave to their owners.
colorful lenses and paracord form a lightweight wearable composition | images courtesy by XYZ
PARACORD REPLACES FRAMES, HINGES, AND CASES
The Tbilisi-based studio has been developing the design since 2019, applying an architectural interest in structure and material economy at a much smaller scale. Each lens is pierced and threaded directly onto the cord, making the connection between components both visible and essential. With little decorative hardware available to disguise the construction, the project relies on proportion, optical quality, and carefully positioned knots to do the work.
Water Glasses is presented in versions carrying one, two, or three sets of lenses. While the single pair operates most directly as eyewear, the extended arrangements move further into collectible design, allowing several colored lenses to hang across the neck and torso. Irregular silhouettes, translucent surfaces, and contrasting cords give the pieces an almost anatomical quality, as though a pair of sunglasses had decided that behaving like conventional eyewear was no longer especially interesting.
the frameless design reduces eyewear to lenses, cord, and knots
EYEWEAR DRIFTS INTO WEARABLE SCULPTURE
Photographed at the Tbilisi Olympic Pool, the collection is shown against an environment that clarifies both its function and its more sculptural ambitions. Rounded, rippled, and knotted lens profiles overlap with the lines of the body, while vivid paracords turn the practical tether into a graphic element. Produced in collaboration with optical lens manufacturer Divel Italia, the lenses introduce technical precision to objects whose appearance frequently edges closer to contemporary jewelry.
Led by Levan Lominashvili and Ana Kachkachishvili, XYZ Integrated Architecture works across buildings, furniture, functional objects, and fashion accessories. Water Glasses brings those disciplines together in a compact object that can be worn, carried, and stored without changing form. By eliminating the secondary objects usually required to protect sunglasses, the studio proposes that the most effective case may simply be the one already hanging around the wearer’s neck.
the glasses shift easily between eyewear and necklace
contrasting cords emphasize the irregular outlines of the lenses