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THIS SEASON, SUNGLASSES are all about fun. Everywhere you look there are funky creations, from Prada's daisy blooms to Moo Eyewear's pastel-hued baroque shades. And former fashion model René Chu's new label, Revé, is no exception.
Revé's debut design, Make Me Meow, features removable cat's ears. The pair has a Wayfarer shape with magnetic cartoon ears that can be snapped onto the brows. Make Me Meow's younger sister, the Beautiful Monster, has a similar frame with a pair of rose gold-plated devil's horns as arms. Her new style, Wish You Were Here, will come out this autumn.
It has only been three months since her first two styles debuted, but they've already made their mark on celebrities such as Jeremy Lin, Sammi Cheng Sau-man, and K-pop groups Girls' Generation and Super Junior.

Chu didn't expect her bedroom project to grow this fast; in fact it almost didn't happen. In December Chu was intrigued by the prospect of appearing on a reality television show about young design entrepreneurs. The Los Angeles Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising graduate had already created two prototypes then, and she showed them to the show's casting manager, the dean of Parsons The New School For Design, Simon Collins, in New York.
"Collins asked me where I envisioned these glasses to be," the 29-year-old Chu recalls. "And I said: 'Colette, Maxfield and Opening Ceremony'."
Collins took one look at them, and replied: "I can see why. But it's not going to happen." Crushed, Chu spent the next three days crying, and was on the verge of giving up. But she had a point to make now. She pursued Colette, made appointments with department stores worldwide and toyed with her glasses inside Opening Ceremony until someone spoke to her about them. Three months later, it paid off. Revé is now stocked in Colette in Paris, and 10 Corso Como in Seoul. Talks are ongoing with other retail giants such as Lane Crawford and Maxfield. "A year ago I only wanted to make sunglasses for myself. I have collected sunglasses all my life, but have never found the perfect pair out of the hundreds I own," says Chu. "For example, I adore Anna-Karin Karlsson's cat's eyes, but I don't necessarily want to be a cat the entire day, you know? "So I started doodling, drawing inspirations from recurrent dreams of Catwoman and vampires. I am a big dreamer, hence the name Revé. Then it occurred to me: nobody - to my knowledge - has ever done removable cat's ears."
But to put a removable part on acetate wasn't as easy as she thought. "I showed my designs to a CAD designer. We considered a host of options for the attachments, and it was a long and difficult process. We experimented with all types of magnets, screws, glue and coatings. I wouldn't be happy wearing anything less than perfect and changed the designs so many times the designer got fed up."

Having put so much effort into her project, Chu wanted to get more out of it. With an initial investment from her parents, she started calling commercial manufacturers. Now, 600 pairs each of Make Me Meow and Beautiful Monster have been made at the same factory that makes Linda Farrow's spectacles.
Having set up meetings with stockists around the world, at one point Chu came dangerously close to having nothing to show. "It was the first time I'd done this, so I didn't know I needed contingency plans," she says. The first packaging manufacturer told her they would deliver the boxes in three months' time, so she scheduled her presentations accordingly. "The week before the boxes were due to arrive, the factory told me the workers were striking, and they ended up striking for two weeks. When the boxes finally came, they were in such a sorry state I had to glue them together. I learned my lesson: have lots of backup contacts."
48hours@scmp.com
 
Revé is available from revebyrene.com
 


René Chu and her feline sunglasses

René Chu in a pair of Revé's Make Me Meow glasses with removable cat's ears. Photos: Marco Chow

Magazines

48 Hours

René Chu dreams big with her cat-inspired sunglasses label Revé, writes Kawai Wong


René Chu dreams big with her cat-inspired sunglasses label Revé, writes Kawai Wong.


René Chu and her feline sunglasses

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}René Chu dreams big with her cat-inspired sunglasses label Revé, writes Kawai Wong

René Chu dreams big with her cat-inspired sunglasses label Revé, writes Kawai Wong