Vintage for your face

I had been wearing a pair of Arnette sunglasses for the last 4 years and it was time to give them a rest, so i  went looking for something different. Enter the PERSOL 649´s.

I stumbled on these by accident and decided i needed to have them. Very cool, very vintage and definitely worth the price. Fashions come and go but great design is timeless.

Here´s a little history from the company website.

"Persol Model 649s, designed for tram drivers in Turin who needed large glasses to protect their eyes against wind and dust, first hit the stores in 1957.

The uniqueness of the 649 design made it an instant success, and many knock-offs were created by Persol's competitors.

Persol, founded in the early 1920s, started out making aviator glasses for the Italian Air Force and racing googles for the legendary Italian driver Fangio. In 1961 Persols became iconic when Marcello Mastroianni wore them in the film "Divorce Italian Style."

The 649's lenses are made of real crystal and have the Persol trademark arrowhead etchings in the corners. The collapsible frames also sport the patented "Meflecto" joints, Meflecto GTOs to be precise.

The particular Persols McQueen wore in that ultracool crime caper "The Thomas Crown Affair" were actually customs, with icy blue lenses, made by Hollywood eyeglass designer Dennis Roberts. Roberts, the owner of Optique Boutique, made 800 (not a typo!) pairs of sunglasses for McQueen alone in his lifetime, many of them riffs on the popular Persols. He also created outlandish eyeware for Elton John, Elvis Presley (including the famous TCB glasses), one-eyed Black Rat Packer Sammy Davis, Jr., Jimi Hendrix, Liberace, Peter Sellers, Bobby Darin, Cary Grant, Jim Morrison, and John Belushi (the yellow-tinted "Bees"), among others. "

The inspiration...

 I already knew that my style would be retro inspired but i needed to get the creative juices flowing. I dove into the web for some examples that might serve as a starting point.
As well as these great examples, i also found some great resources at sites like MIDCENTURYMODERNIST  and MIDCENTURYHOMESTYLE just to name a few.

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The layout

So here is what i have to work with. The living/dining area are composed of 22 m2 of usable space...enough for the layout you see in the floor plans. Looks fine as a floor plan but it ends up being a little cramped in reality.
I'm going to need to have some patience and imagination to pick pieces that will create the look i want without taking up all the usable space...afterall, i do want to be able to walk around with my Martini without crashing into things.

A dash of Ikea

In my quest to furnish my new home, i've decided that my style would be Mid Century Modern. I admire it's simplicity, the purity of it's design, and simply...it suits the classic yet modern nature of who i am.

My approach would be to mix a few well chosen design classics of the period and add a dash of Ikea items (also carefully chosen) to the recipe. Namely the KARLSTADD 3 place sofa in Korndal Grey and for iluminating the dining area i chose the FADO ceiling lamp. Both of which keep me within the budget and the time period.

Timeless design

A Classic...and it's finally mine. I've been looking for this coffee table for some time now and as luck would have it i stumbled upon it this morning while browsing the local furniture stores.
This is one of the center pieces of  what will be my Mid Century Modern themed living room.