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S2 Ep. 7 | The Godfather of Luxury Eyewear: The Larry Sands Story | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby
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- [00:00]
Host
He was a rock star in the 60s and 70s, sharing stages with Led Zeppelin, the Byrds, Sly and the Family Stone. But then he walked away and built an Empire. In 1969, Larry Sands revolutionized the eyewear industry. Back then, glasses were just a medical necessity until he turned them into a luxury fashion statement. He created what many call the world's first optical boutique and changed the game forever. From designing for Elton John and Karl Lagerfeld to pioneering chrome hearts eyewear, to launching Bugatti's ultra exclusive glasses, Larry Sands isn't just in the business of eyewear. He invented the luxury eyewear industry. And now, at 86 years old, he's still scaling, still innovating, and still turning creativity into business. Today, we talk about reinvention, longevity, and the art of staying ahead no matter what industry you're in. Welcome to coffees.
- [01:04]
Interviewer
You know, you look great, Larry, and the fact is, you're here. You just opened a brand new facility in Newport beach, right on the coast, right on the water. So, you know, with that said, you're still scaling, you're still a productive entrepreneur, still growing.
- [01:19]
Larry Sands
Well, the constant need for money. Played all the golf. I want to play really more than just someplace to go every day. It's all about building something that nobody's ever done before. First of all, I'm the first guy to ever put wristwatches and mix it with eyewear. That's because that's how the original optical shops evolved. They started off in jewelry stores as just a small little optician behind a little table. And that was a contribution to a watch shop that carried barometers, binoculars, so forth. So this is my second one. I did one in Florida, which was very successful, was the first Richard Mille dealership in the United States. And now we tried this. And people who love eyewear love wristwatches. It's amazing. It's not unusual for somebody to come in and buy one of each. Well, I came for a watch, but I've never seen eyewear like this. So what have you got for me? Since I've designed over a thousand pair of glasses for Elton John, I'm pretty good at looking at somebody's face and knowing what's going to look good. And usually somebody buys the first frame I put on them. Now, men especially, because men don't want to fool around. They don't have the time. Ladies, they want to see more. So they look at 4, 5, 6 pair and then come back to the first pair I put on them. So, yeah, I'm really good at that.
- [03:14]
Interviewer
Two questions. When did you start your entrepreneurial journey and when did you start your journey in high end fashion?
- [03:20]
Larry Sands
I had a rock band for about seven and a half years. Before that, I had five little optical boutiques in Missouri. I was a music major in college. I needed to get that out of my system. So. So I started a little local rock band. I can't remember the year. Early 60s, kind of the end of the doo wop era and the beginning of rock and country rock. So started this little group and blew it up pretty big, pretty quick. Ended up going on the road with the Birds, and after that, Sly and the Family Stone. After that, a band called Vanilla Fudge, which was an incredible band. After that, I opened for Led Zeppelin 1969, and then hung it up and opened a, I think I'm told, the first optical boutique in the world, which was in Aspen, Colorado in 1969. So believe me, I had no idea what I was doing or what I was about to do. But the Optical Shop of Aspen became the most duplicated store in the world. I would go into a foreign country and walk in an optical shop and thought I was in Aspen. They had done the same carpeting, the same wall, the same wood, everything. So highly complimented by that. When I had to open 25 more of those. All good. What else can I tell you? Everybody's got to stay busy.
- [05:13]
Interviewer
You opened 25 optical shops in Aspen?
- [05:16]
Larry Sands
Yes.
- [05:17]
Interviewer
When did you partner with Richard Stark and start Chrome Hard Cyware?
- [05:22]
Larry Sands
It was, I think, 1999, and Richard and I were not partners ever. We were good friends and we did work together mainly on the names of the eyewear, naturally. Well, I licensed the name Chrome Hearts and I had a. Had a long term license with them. So, yeah, I designed the eyewear, I made the eyewear. Richard and I named them because we had a good time coming up with filthy names that we really couldn't recite in public. So this was a good way to get it off our chest. And yeah. And after that, I've designed three or four or five other brands. One of my biggest moments is when Karl Lagerfeld called me and asked me to make glasses. I think his picture is up behind me somewhere. So, you know, Elton John is one thing. Karl Lagerfeld is like getting a phone call from God to help me read the Bible. So Carl said, you know, I don't like those square men's frames, so. And I said, I think I know what you like and figure that out quickly. The very first thing I designed, he Wore the last 12, 14 years of his life. That frame that you see on the wall there. So I was honored by that. He even gave talks at Chanel about the eyewear and how it had to get better. And he used chrome hearts and the ones he was wearing as an example of what Chanel needed. Chanel eyewear needed to become so all a big honor.
- [07:24]
Interviewer
I didn't even know that there was that correlation. But I could definitely see Chanel inspired by chrome hearts at some, some point.
- [07:32]
Larry Sands
There are people out there that are spending 2 to $4,000 for a pair of eyeglasses and I want to take the blame for that and the responsibility for it. Because if you're an optician, I want you should send me flowers or a card or money. Because without me, eyewear would not have a category of up in the thousands. I started it and I continue to do it here in this store.
- [08:03]
Interviewer
You are the godfather of elegance in eyewear. It's really for me, as a youth kind of stepping into success and being introduced to chrome hearts. I wore chrome hearts since almost like you started the company. So I didn't know it started in 99. I started wearing them in 2001.
- [08:21]
Larry Sands
They weren't existing company that made Richard Stark, genius designer, made incredible jewelry, great leather pants, furniture. Really an exceptional man, exceptional designer. I was lucky that we met each other and he allowed me to start my own company within the realm of his company was called Optical Shops International that actually owned and manufactured chrome hearts highware and distributed all over the world.
- [08:58]
Interviewer
Now you're designing Shambhala, you're designing Bugatti Paradis. And then I think once I. You said you were going to do a collab with Richard Mille as well.
- [09:10]
Larry Sands
No, Richard and I have talked about this. He's a really good friend of mine, so we've talked about it for 25 years.
- [09:21]
Interviewer
That would be a six figure pair of sunglasses.
- [09:23]
Larry Sands
Richard's kind of backed down from his company quite a bit. His son pretty much is running it and making most of the decisions. Richard, however, is a genius. I've been really fortunate to be paired by God with genius people and they've rubbed off on me. And I get a lot of credit I don't deserve because you're credited and recognized often by who you associate with and who associates with you. I've been so lucky to say I've associated with people like Richard Stark, Richard Mill, Karl Lagerfeld, Nadal. I can keep going. Yeah. The president of Bugatti, who's been very kind to me who gave me a 10 year deal to do Bugatti eyewear and forgot to ask me my age. And then he said, by the way, and I said, okay, I am 86 years old. I am. He said, oh, I just gave a 10 year deal to a guy who's 86. Don't worry, I'll be here.
- [10:31]
Interviewer
How are you still able to work with such zeal, such passed in such, you know, vigor at this age? Still with the same design talent, the same, you know, things that brought you this success at 86 years old? I mean, you're still inking 10 year deals at 86. It's unbelievable.
- [10:51]
Larry Sands
I think you have to know what's going on in the world. I think you have to be aware and conscious of what's going on in the fashion world constantly. I read a hundred magazines every month. The ones that aren't in print, like Maxim, I'm still reading them online. So if you want to know what's going on in the fashion world all over, that's what's required. You need to read at least 100 magazines. You need to read Elle, Vogue, Mademoiselle, People every week. And then I actually get GQ in this country. I also get German GQ because it's a totally different book. And fashion actually is occurring a little quicker in Germany than it is here. So if that answers your questions, that's how I stay up to date and that's how I know what shapes I should do, what colors I should do. That's it. It's just about formulating from all the fashion that's going on the world and wrapping it up into something that looks good on someone's face.
- [12:06]
Interviewer
The concept of luxury eyewear was non existent. And at the time you created luxury eyewear, you could have been deemed, or you probably were deemed crazy. Like to think that you could charge thousands of dollars in the late 90s, early 2000s for sunglasses. That thought by itself at the time for sure was ludicrous.
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Larry Sands
World Press international said in 1999 that I created and developed the niche for luxury eyewear and it wouldn't exist without me at that moment. That was true. But if I didn't do it in 1999, someone would have done it sometime in the early 20s. I mean, it was just laying out there. Somebody had to. I just did it first.
- [12:55]
Interviewer
I mean, you were a trailblazer, but timing was ripe.
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Larry Sands
Yeah.
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Interviewer
Now the creative process, there's a lot of thought and creativity and cost that goes into designing. I mean, all your business, probably more.
- [13:09]
Larry Sands
Money Went into designing Bugatti. I mean. I mean, I don't know a lot of the cost on any of that. I don't care, you know, if I want to make a certain frame a certain way and I want to put diamonds on it or rubies in the eyes of a snake, I don't really care what it costs. I just do it. And there's no Broadway term. There's an ask for every seat.
- [13:35]
Interviewer
Entrepreneurship is generally like that. Like, you. You don't look at the cost, you just go with your gut. But, you know, you had to spend a lot to basically put a product on the market that no one had ever done.
- [13:48]
Larry Sands
Well, I think, yeah, I spent probably 2 1/2 million dollars getting chrome hearts to the public. Yeah. And the first collection was highly rejected. I can remember hiring reps and having them take it around to the optometric division of the optical business first, which was a mistake.
- [14:18]
Interviewer
Why was that a mistake?
- [14:19]
Larry Sands
Well, because I had you on both sides on the original collection and inlaid into wood and mother pearl, things like that. So it was rejected for the first collection. First six months, full of rejection. I sound like Trump. Yeah, rejection. Full of it. So in about eight months, those same people were calling me saying, could we have another look? Or just send me anything you have that has fuck on it. And it turned around so quick, and it just became. I almost felt like I invented the word fuck for a while. That's what they wanted. So we want to buy a broader market than that. So we eased it up and. And started putting it on the inside. Then we decided to legitimize it by just putting names on frames that were maybe a little risque, that nobody understood. Yeah, Box lunch. Okay. Medixadryl, that famous antibiotic, things like that. And people. People were having more fun with that than they did fuck you. Because they'd heard fuck you all their life. Now all of a sudden, they had to figure it out. One day, Richard and I were just out of names. We'd named about 12 frames, and we had just run dry on names. We'd been drinking vodka. There was a bottle there. And I said, richard, I'm worn out. I'm just going to put Sky S K Y Y on this frame, which I did, and we released it. Hundreds of phone calls, okay? We've been everywhere. We've talked to everybody. What does that really mean? What does that stand for? And if I told the truth, I. It was. We were worn out, and the only thing we had in front of us was an empty bottle. Of Sky Vodka. I don't even know if they make Sky Vodka anymore. That's how important the name was. And people were dying to see the list of new names. You know, after Chrome Hearts, I did Shambhala and Shambhala. Shambhala is a term for heaven that is used by the monks in Tibet. And it was a complete turnaround. And eyewear design and in function, everything had to be different. So, you know, just overnight, I went from fuck you to bless you, Buddha. Like, we gave credit to all the Eastern religions in that brand. And it was fun. The biggest expense in making eyewear is making the molds. And the molds have to be like jewelry molds, because you're going to make a lot of frames off of that mold. So an eyewear mold can cost you as much as $25,000 and you haven't made a frame yet.
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Interviewer
Where do you like the world of luxury design eyewear now? Like, what do you think of it now after Chrome Hearts?
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Larry Sands
Truthfully, don't think there's very many companies trying to produce luxury. Number one, you can't make it in bulk. It's not luxury anymore. It can't be easily obtainable, or it's not luxury anymore. It has to have some exotic product, some feature that's exotic, or it's not luxury. I can keep going and define luxury, but it's not what you think.
- [18:01]
Interviewer
Well, you have, like, ivory in your frames and you have, you know, diamonds, mother of pearl.
- [18:07]
Larry Sands
Mother of pearl, Whatever we can do to make it luxury. And that's why I only make on a lot of frames, a hundred copies. I don't make a thousand just because I have a thousand calls for it. Now, there are companies that would have you believe that they are luxury. One of them goes by three initials. They stamp 251 of 250 on the frame. So as a consumer, you assume, okay, they're only making 250. But no, that was just that run. So now we're going to make another 250. We sold all those, so it's endless. If I say, I love this frame, I'm going to make 100 of them for the world. That's all I make. I don't care If I've got 500 people wanting 500 more. That's where I stop. So the average frame I make, I now make 150 pieces, and that's it. And I don't make any more. Chrome Hearts was one of them that we decided to only make 150 copies per frame. And put serial numbers. Chrome Hearts was the first eyewear to ever have a serial number on it, to my knowledge.
- [19:24]
Interviewer
It's just next level for you to be such a pioneer at the time.
- [19:29]
Larry Sands
I have a very pedestrian lifestyle. It's not what it used to be. You can't live like that forever. Yeah, of course I don't own a boat anymore. I think my wife made me sign papers that I will never own a boat again after eight. That's the Jewish answer. I'm comfortable. When they say, are you comfortable? You say, I make a good living.
- [19:58]
Interviewer
What age were you when you started your first business?
- [20:01]
Larry Sands
12.
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Interviewer
12. What was that?
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Larry Sands
Shoeshine stand. Stamp collecting was big. I would buy stamps from the stamp collecting companies and repurposed them, redesign the layout for them, put them in books and sell them at high school to the stamp collectors. Then after I did that for two years, gentleman who owned the golf course in my hometown said, you know, you want to make some real money, you come out, I'll teach you how to caddy. So I went out and learned how to caddy. And then that made real money running back and forth with two big bags on my shoulder and finished out learning how to play golf, which has been a great thing for me to know my whole life.
- [20:53]
Interviewer
74 years as an entrepreneur. In those 74 years, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received when.
- [21:01]
Larry Sands
You open a new business? Day one, have your exit plan, have it figured out, or don't open your business until you have your exit plan done figured. So I never thought of it that way, but I'd actually already been doing that. I've opened somewhere between 80 and 100 stores and I think it was just kind of automatic to think about. Okay, I'm opening this new store. What if, what if it's great? Okay, how do I market it? So I need to gear it up to sell it, whether it's good or bad. And that became kind of automatic. As you probably know, Oakley bought Optical Shops of Aspen.
- [21:52]
Interviewer
I didn't know you sold to Oakley.
- [21:53]
Larry Sands
Optical Shops of Aspen was purchased in the, I think around 2007, 2008 by Oakley.
- [22:03]
Interviewer
What was the source or the inspiration for your designs?
- [22:07]
Larry Sands
It would be a list of things like if you could roll this all up into a ball. Porn star, stripper, gun runner, dope dealer, biker, rockstar, lifestyle stuff. All of that rolled up into a pair of sunglasses. All of that built in, an 18 karat gold or sterling silver case. That's all part of it. We never really discussed The Fleur de Lis, which he uses a lot on clothing. I wear everything. It's. I think the. Pretty sure the Boy Scouts own this in this country. In France, everyone owns it, so. But his fluor is a little different. Copyrighted, patented. I've used it on many frames. And you know another brand I did that you didn't discuss, if I could bring up another brand that I did. Before Chrome Hearts, it was Barry Kieselstein Cord. Now, Barry Kieselstein is still alive. He's one of the most famous jewelry designers in the history of our country. For years had a shop and shop in Bergdorf's in New York. He has several pieces in the Museum of Modern Art right now. Belt buckles that he did one called the Winchester. I got a lot of inspiration from Barry, and it's actually, I think the first eyewear line I did was Barry Kieselstein Cord. Also, I was the first to put animals on eyeglasses. So we had alligators on Barry Keiselstein. I have some here. I can show you. We used alligators, frogs, things like that.
- [24:10]
Interviewer
Their skin or.
- [24:12]
Larry Sands
No, just. Just image facsimiles of a frog. Only it's in solid gold on a high glass frame. That was in the 90s or maybe 88. One thing that led me to some of the names on Chrome Hearts was I named a frame for Kieselstein, the Gladiator. Okay, so the Gladiator was. Didn't the movie come out sometime in early 2000? I was still doing Kieselstein Kord at the same time I was doing Combhart's Eyewear. So the Gladiator was such a hit by people, but there were a certain group of guys that liked to pronounce it Glad He Ate Her. That also was one of the few names that transferred from Kieselstein Cord over into Chrome Hearts and had a completely different meaning.
- [25:03]
Interviewer
Who's your favorite person that you've designed for?
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Larry Sands
Karl Lagerfeld. I'm never going to get any better than that. That's. He's a God, so. But I've had. I've had some. I mean, Elton John was. That was good. That was fun. When the Eagles got back together, they called me and said, you know, we've been apart for 15 years, and this was Don Henley talking to me, and we've been friends for 50 years. And he goes, so hell just froze over. We got to get back together. A couple of guys want to do it. I'm not going to hold out. Everybody's clean you know what that means. So would you mind closing one of your stores for a day? And I'll bring the Eagles in and you'll just make everybody in the band. Cool eyeglasses. That was an honor. I put that date up there on the chart. And then when I got a call from James Gandolfini that said, would you mind designing eyewear for like one season of the Sopranos? That was good. It's all good. But those are two that with Carl, I don't know, and Elton John. How much. How much Can I do?
- [26:31]
Interviewer
If you had two steps to take, what steps would you take to become as successful as you are?
- [26:35]
Larry Sands
Can I tell you honestly, I view myself as one of the biggest accidents that's ever happened. Seriously. I don't take myself very seriously. It's Life is funny, isn't it? It's all just a joke. I can't answer that question. I don't know. At first I wanted to make money like everybody, and I was figuring out different ways to do it. And Optical Shop of Aspen was really one of the biggest overnight successes the world has ever seen. It actually fed the entire world of optical. And because of it, people who were charging $300 for a pair of glasses all of a sudden could charge five and six hundred dollars for a pair of glasses because the quality got better. Because of me, the lenses got better. Everything got a little better. So the word would be greed. That's always inspirational. The more I did and the more people accepted it, the more I was trying to think of, what can I do next? That's going to be something that people are going to go, oh, my God, he didn't really name that frame. That name. I don't know. I like the shock value of many things. I did with Kieselstein Kord as well. You know, I was the first person to ever make an earpiece out of wood. I had to buy a DNC CNC machine for that just to make a wooden temple. Definitely the first person to ever put Fuck youk on I wear. I love that. That's what TV Thing said. That changed Sam's life right there and made him stand out in a. I think they said, a foggy world of things. I named, like, drug dealers, gun runners, hookers, strippers, all that, which all morphed into chrome hearts. Chrome hearts.
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Interviewer
What if you were to go back in time when you started your most successful business? What. What advice would you give yourself?
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Larry Sands
I don't know. I talk about this like I love it. But you know what? I really love being on the road playing music more than this.
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Interviewer
Do you find a correlation between high fashion and creating music?
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Larry Sands
You know, I'm a songwriter. I. I still have songs from an album I did 50 years ago on itunes. I don't even know how they got there. So I got a check for $90 last month.
- [29:32]
Interviewer
That's awesome.
- [29:33]
Larry Sands
Writing music and designing eyewear, there's some correlation there. I think you're creating something. I can't explain it. It's maybe the art in me or the little bit of artistic savvy I have. I'm not going to call it talent because I can see something I really love by another designer and say, I love that, but I'm going to make a couple of changes and make it better. By the way, that's how most designers work. If you ever see Ralph Lauren's office, it's cut and paste from old stuff to new stuff, and that's the way it works. So if I see. If I see a frame I like, I usually. Somebody's wearing it, I. I usually start thinking about how I could make that look a little bit better. So the question is, at 21, what do you really think about at 21? You think about sex in when I was 21, drugs for sure. Rock and roll. And then more sex. 21.
- [30:49]
Interviewer
Yeah. Yeah.
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Larry Sands
What should I think about being in business?
- [30:52]
Interviewer
A couple last questions and we'll adjourn here. And this is a couple personal questions. What's a personal goal you have for yourself, a goal that you have for the family, and a goal that you have for your businesses?
- [31:05]
Larry Sands
I guess I should be more of a goal maker. Moving this store from Fashion island to this location is like moving it to another country. Because the people that live here, they don't really know anything about Fashion Island. It's amazing how many people live across the bridge in Lido who've never been to Fashion island or South Coast Plaza. Our business is up from where we were, where we were a year ago in Fashion island. And it's a whole new set of people. What they've done with Lido is create something like the Village in New York in the 70s and the 80s. Oh, we have 25amazing restaurants. We have stores that entrepreneurial stores with product that you can't find find in a mall. This is just where. This is where it's going to happen. Where the future of retail and high end is going to happen in Newport beach is going to be in Lido Village. I'm positive of that. I have a 17 year lease.
- [32:17]
Interviewer
It has to 17 years. So you've got to work till you're like, no problem.
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Larry Sands
I'm done at 103.
- [32:28]
Interviewer
Now, one last thing. When you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you?
- [32:35]
Larry Sands
Well, I'm going to tell you an interesting story quick. One of my best friends is Greg Laurie, he's the next Billy Graham. We're good friends. And so I had a dream a couple of years ago I told Greg about, and we both died and gone to heaven. And Greg naturally is in front of me at the pearly gates and he goes over waves. They immediately wave Greg in and the guy keeps going, keeps going, keeps going. Greg comes walks back and says, what's the problem here? And I go, I'm not on the list. That's the end of the story. I'm not on the list. So Greg said, I'm getting you on the list. You will be on the list. God has been a big part of my career, my life. And you know, shamefully, I may have forgotten about God for a few years during rock and roll because the two are pretty easy mix in today's society. A difficult mix in those days with, you know, they had just discovered drugs like, wow, cocaine, it's in Coca Cola, it's in Dr. Pepper, it's Spike free. Not really. But then between cocaine and Quaaludes, it was a mess out there for a long time. And no aids.
- [34:12]
Interviewer
It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for doing the show. Thank you so much for all you do for high fashion.
- [34:19]
Larry Sands
Thanks for the opportunity.
- [34:20]
Interviewer
Larry Sands, everyone. Thank you for listening.
- [34:25]
Larry Sands
I want it all on nothing at all.
- [34:29]
Interviewer
Cause I won't stop now Ooh, baby I will hold my ground no, no, I won't stop.