As the president of the LVMH watch division, Jean Claude Biver, was announcing the Swiss watch industry’s first serious response to the Apple watch – a collaboration between TAG Heuer and two US tech giants, Google and Intel, at last month’s Baselworld, I was struck by how little has been heard lately of that last great leap into ‘wearables’ Google Glass. A quick, as it happens, Google put me straight – in the UK at least, the beta version has come off sale, and will shortly be replaced by a new iteration.  Meanwhile, “take up”, in Basel at least, remained immeasurably small. I asked around the audience of techies who’d assembled to hear Mr Biver’s exciting news, the answer came back that connected devices in the form of eyewear are deemed either too intrusive or, fatally, a bit niche. (After all, not everybody wears glasses and if you don't have to why would you ?)  So the revolution in wearable technology has moved from the face to the wrist, eschewing for the time being at least the need for the eyewear industry to shift uncomfortably in its seat whilst appearing to welcome a disruptive element into its midst.  I was pondering all of this again last week, while getting my eyes tested at Tom Davies’ one-of-a kind ophthalmic laboratory beneath his eyewear business off Sloane Square. As my colleague Ken Kessler has pointed out, the Zeiss-developed devices on offer here are at the bleeding edge of diagnostic science, and as much as a wearable version might assist the quantified life – i.e. give stats on steps taken, hearts pounded, and pulses felt – there’s nothing quite like knowing that one’s corneal thickness and vitreous pressures are all fine, along with many other oracular indicators of one’s general health.  We may choose to wear a connected device on our wrists, but we sometimes need glasses, or at least the tests that detect how great a need that might be. As good a reason as any, I suppose, to stay connected with what’s happening in eyewear.  And right now, at least, it seems to be measuring up quite well against the allure of a wrist-born, life-balance checker. Take, for instance, the collaboration between Lapo Elkann’s design company, Italia Independent, and another of Mr Biver’s brands – Hublot. Obligingly, the sports-luxe watch company has shared with Mr Eklann’s designers a new material, Texalium, that combines the lightness of carbon fibre with the opportunity to produce it in far more brilliant colours than previously thought achievable.  The new Big Bang Unico Italia Independent is available in two such colourways – this season’s standout horological favourite, blue, and the only slightly less ubiquitous grey – but more interestingly, is being marketed with a pair of matching sunglasses fashioned from the same material.  Of course, eyewear has long been a core competency of Lapo’s company, but it’s an intriguing step forward for the as yet unconnected to a face-born device: should we – whether equipped with Hublot/Italia Independent’s timepiece/eyewear set or not – now think about matching our glasses to our watches? Case materials would certainly not be a problem – RayBan’s classic Aviators are available in colourations specific to each of the three most popular precious metals – and sizing could easily reflect the amount of horological real-estate on offer.  For those less minded to add eyewear to the fraught field of shoes/belt/watch strap matching, there’s another brand that’s come into my peripheral vison, as it were: Mondelliani. Like Mr Elkann’s company, an independent, Italian-run business, Mondelliani styles its glasses on rather more intriguing shapes than the traditional Aviator – one range, DOC, is modeled on the forms of various glassware, including the squared-off Tumbler and the pebble-ish Ballon – and all suggest the timeless appeal of an affogato taken during an impressively late lunch in the Mondello family’s native Rome.  None talk to one’s tablet or timepiece, but each pair communicates a life sufficiently quantified to leave room for its simplest pleasures.  Bill Prince is the deputy editor of British GQ
It isn't just Google Glass leading the charge in innovative eyewear; Bill Prince looks at the brands pushing boundaries and turning face furniture into an art form