The beauty of an unfinished line.

Of all the frames on Masahiro Maruyama’s website, MM-0087 was the one I kept coming back to. Clear olive green acetate, a strong, flat brow and a shape that doesn’t follow the rules. Look closely and the edges are angular, as if they’ve been chiselled out of the acetate.

MM-0087 belongs to Dessin, French for drawing, the collection where Maruyama’s story began.

Having studied industrial craft design and fashion illustration, Maruyama spent fifteen years designing eyewear for other brands. Yet, despite all that experience, he struggled to find frames he actually wanted to wear.

So, in 2011, he started making his own.

His first collection was based on his hand-drawn sketches. Those sketches became the designs of his frames, imperfections and all.

He calls his approach Unfinished Art, describing a beauty that exists “as if time has stopped midway”.

The frames are made in Sabae, in Japan’s Fukui prefecture, where eyewear production began in 1905.

The acetate comes from Mazzucchelli, an Italian family business established in 1849. In Sabae, each frame is filed by hand to maintain an even thickness around its irregular edges, then polished to its final finish.

It’s an interesting contradiction. Something that looks unfinished but takes considerable skill to make.

And that’s what I admire about Maruyama’s work. He’s taken the imperfections of a pencil sketch and made them the defining feature of his eyewear.

When asked what he hopes his frames will bring to the people who wear them, his answer was simple: happiness.

After fifteen years of designing frames for other people, I imagine there’s something satisfying about finally making the ones you always wanted to wear.

I can see why. I’d happily wear a pair myself.