For creatives, inspiration can strike anytime and anywhere. Sometimes, it seems like the most curious things spark incredible ideas—be it a strange looking branch, a beautiful line in a song or a touching moment with a family member. For independent eyewear brand TAVAT, design inspiration comes from the iconic shape of a soup can. TAVAT’s SoupCan collection came to life when the company’s designer, Norm Schureman, visited a friend in Arizona. According to TAVAT’s website, it was a poster from the 1930s that sparked the idea.

The poster featured a group of 1930s crop sprayers who called themselves “The Flying Burritos,” and wore “crude” goggles which Norm imagined were made out of soup cans. He wondered how these decades-old goggles could be modernized, and after returning to TAVAT’s homebase in Pasadena, Calif., Norm embarked on creating a line of wearable frames inspired by the soup can goggles.

This study resulted in what TAVAT calls “a completely new way of making frames.” In fact, it takes about five months to create each frame in the SoupCan collection, which is available in both optical and sunglass styles, and handmade in Northern Italy.

Although all the frames are inspired by the same pair of soup can goggles, TAVAT has found a remarkable amount of variety in that simple round shape. Material and color add excitement to the circular frames, as do sharp edges, geometric lines, and unexpected silhouettes which vary from frame to frame. No two frame styles in the SoupCan line are exactly the same—perhaps in the same way their inspiration—handmade goggles, forged out of necessity—would have been.

  

TAVAT frames are available for purchase from qualified optical professionals around the world.