Our Story
Bob Browns is a sharply edited collection of 5 classic men’s eyewear silhouettes all rendered in one timeless colourway and lens tone. They reflect a love for anti-heroes, individuals and groups who have influenced 20th Century culture, style and history. Literary icons, enigmatic artists, fifties greasers and New York street hustlers, every frame we create has a story behind it, a reference to a person or period of time that was culturally significant. While our range strikes a chord of recognition for things past, styles have been re-made and re-modelled to connect with the here and now.
With a heritage that runs deep into the 1960’s Bob Browns has evolved from a generation of makers, designers and crafts people skilled in the art of drafting, fabrication and materiality. Balance and proportion married with a passion for making are at the core of Bob Browns design ethos. We call it “the eye” something attained through years of designing and working with master makers leading to an intuitive response when a design is “just right”. Our design process relies on the traditional method of pen and paper in a direct relationship between the brain and the hand that technology gets in the way of. There’s an inherent freedom and immediacy in having an idea and committing it direct to a scrap of paper, a napkin or a notebook. Over time we have amassed a series of sketches and drawings in our library that we can revisit and refer to, an ever-evolving repository of ideas that have only the Bob Browns unique handwriting to them.
Cohesion across our styles comes through a classic sense of proportion and rigour, lack of adornment and use of a simple palette of real and honest materials. Sensibly sourced from premium materials and made to last in small batches our frames and cases are handmade in our British workshops by master craftsmen in a celebration of authentic fabrication and timeless handwork.
Made in England is at the core of our brand, enabling us to work face to face with local skilled crafts people and minimising our carbon footprint. Each Bob Brown frame is manufactured by hand in London. Our frames are made in small runs taking over 70 hours to produce from start to finish. From setting out the frame shapes to cutting, polishing and fitting the lens each step is undertaken by our experienced artisans. Our small British workshops celebrate the long history of eyewear making in the UK and still maintain and use machines and tools with a history from deep in the mid 20th Century alongside the best in contemporary machining processes.
Each of our frames is housed in a bespoke leather case designed to age gracefully and to fit snuggly in your pocket without affecting the line of a jacket. Handmade in Leicestershire England by premium leathergoods specialists from veg tanned Italian leather & goat suede each case is hand stitched, wax edged and de-bossed with our distinctive logo.
