CHRISTIAN ROTH TAPS ALEXANDER DIGENOVA FOR HIS NEWEST CAMPAIGN
Eyewear designer Christian Roth has tapped 23-year-old designer, photographer, and creative director Alexander DiGenova for his newest campaign.
Roth, who as a teenager at the time, was profoundly influenced by the counter-cultural ethos emanating from New York in the 1980s. “Early ‘80s New York matters today, we still feel the creative energy, strivings, and tensions of those years. For us it was the gateway to live our dreams and to express our identities,” recalled Roth. “Alexander reminds us of a ‘young, aspiring us.’ His defined aesthetics, radical candor, and imagination for emotional material are already set at the dawn of his adulthood.”
Set in his Los Angeles apartment, Alexander enlisted his fellow creative muses, models, and friends isolated with him to create the new eyewear campaign. Highlights from the collection include ARMER, worn by Anthony, a savant genius and master sewer who also happens to be Alexander’s brother. This eyewear style celebrates the thrall of New York’s sizzling midtown nightclubs with extravagant proportions of the early 1980s slimmed and elongated for a dramatic new aviator.
The proportions of the ’80s continue in ROUND- WAV, a spacey oval frame rendered in a special cut-and-paste acetate. Worn by Kai, a young, Vietnam-born, L.A.-based designer, the spirit of the ROUND-WAV is captured on the unapologetic rebel-without-a-cause who lives for Los Angeles nightlife. “Kai has been wearing vintage before he even knew what vintage meant,” said Alexander.
Model Juliana wears FIRI, a punky cat-eye rendered in angular proportions, using the brand’s signature ultra-beveled acetate. “A bold, sculptural silhouette is perfect on Juliana and reminiscent of her essence,” added Alexander. “Though in her early 20s, Juliana has traveled the world three times over and is fluent in French. Her monochromatic aesthetic is never complete without sunglasses.”
