Rare Paulette Guinet Cabana Sunglasses (1950's, lookinglass on Ebay)

Good morning!

It's Wednesday of a three day work week-- OH MY GOODNESS, CAN ALL WORK WEEKS BE LIKE THIS. I wish I could work part time and receive full-time compensation, because I'm telling you-- there's a spring in my step just thinking about only having to make it through 1.5 more days of book slingin' until the weekend. And I didn't get you your flea market pictures...this giddy lack of responsibility, I should be ashamed. But maybe tomorrow?

In the meantime, at least the sun is out and about today! I was nosing around on Ebay earlier for vintage sunglasses when this number about sent me into cardiac arrest:

RARE Paulette Guinet Hand Carved Prototype Gold Leaf SNAKE Sunglasses C. 1950's

YES, MAMA. YESSSSS. This pair of sunglasses is serving gold Cleopatra-and-the-asp realness and HOW. At $8,000, the price tag is almost as impressive as the accessory itself, but let's just think rationally for a moment here-- while these are handcarved French original vintage designer sunglasses, surely there is a knockoff shop SOMEWHERE who could put these be-all, end-all lunettes de soleil into production for a fraction of that cost, please?! 

Vintage Paulette Guinet Pearl Gilt Pierced Tiara Cat Eye Sunglasses Circa 1950

While I wasn't able to find much more information on the web about Paulette Guinet other than she was a midcentury designer (um, duh), the Ebay seller lookinglass, who specializes in "COSTUMES, MASKS, SUNGLASSES,  FASHION & SPORT, MARDI GRAS ITEMS, VICTORIAN PAPER MASKS" (on a scale of 1 to 10, I would give this shop an 11 for "things I would like to purchase"), has a ton of rare and whimsical examples of her sunglasses on hand in the shop, ready for you to drool over if not purchase (four figure price range has me bugging almost as badly as the designs themselves).

Liiiiike....these Walther PPK embellished James Bond prototype glasses. Who would even think of this?!

Vintage Paulette Guinet Pre-Production James Bond 007 Sunglasses Circa 1950

I love how the iconic barrel of the gun contributes to a dramatic cats-eye effect. And the hits just keep on coming! While I myself tend to stick with plain, black, oversized Jackie Kennedy type haterblockers, or offbrand Wayfarers, I am not going to say I'm not 100% in love with these crazy, Elton-John worthy concoctions of equal parts glamour and imagination.

Take a look at the other spectacle-of-spectacles glasses up on the shop:

Vintage Paulette Guinet Hand Made Pearlesque Flower Sunglass Frames 1950

Very Sylvie Vartan, n'est-ce pas? And flower power as the day is long!

Paulette Guinet Black Swan With Inset Rhinstones Sunglasses Circa 1950 Hand Made

Black swans AND aurora borealis rhinestone embellishment? THANK YOU, and YES.

Vintage Paulette Guinet Black Extreme Tiara Cat Eye Sunglass Frames Circa 1950

These are so extreme they'd amount to pretty much a faceplate, don't you think? I wish some of these were modeled on people's faces or even a mannequin head so we could get a good idea of what they would look like in the wild.

RARE Paulette Guinet Hand Carved Prototype Gold Leaf Reader Sunglasses C. 1950

A little surreal but amazing...

Vintage Paulette Guinet Hand Fabricated Blue Fire Flame Sunglasses

Another faceplate-- but less severe than the black pair.

Vintage Paulette Guinet Handmade Awesome Cat-Eye Sunglasses

THESE I WILL ACTUALLY WEAR, someone get me a knock of these, but quickly, before I lose my nerve...

Vintage Paulette Guinet HAND CARVED Black White Clear Square Lense Sunglasses

So! What do you think? Would you have to be either a French yéyé singer along the lines of Françoise Hardy or a bold Audrey-in-Courrèges à la 1967's Two For the Road to pull this off? Both those examples are a decade after when a lot of these sunglasses would have been originally produced-- can you imagine how wingding these must have looked on any but the most courageous of sunglasses wearers? Do you have any heavy-with-novelty novelty sunglasses in your collection or are you a staid shades wearer like yours truly? Seeing a pair of these in real life might convert me yet!

That's all for today....have a great Wednesday! I should have flea market finds for you tomorrow (yeah, yeah, you say, I keep hearing that). :) Take care! Til then.