Fancy tinted sunglasses with brown shades

Two browns that are not the same brown

Hold the pair up and the difference shows straight away. The lens brown is thin and transparent, closer to weak tea than to wood; you can read a page through the lower half of it. The arms in translucent brown are the opposite: solid enough to hide what is behind them, with a warm red undertone that shows as soon as light passes through. Put one over the other and you get three shades instead of two.

Rimless sunglasses with brown gradient lenses

Nothing circles the lens. The edge is the finished edge of the glass itself, and the pair holds together on two fixings rather than on a frame. That is what keeps the unusually wide front looking airy rather than heavy.

• Lens: brown, deeper at the top, almost clear at the bottom edge
• Front: wide, straight along the brow, cut in flat sections
• Arms: brown, translucent, polished, narrowing towards the ear
• Metal: gold-tone at the bridge and at the outer corner of each lens

Where the gold sits between them

At the outer corner of each lens, a double gold bar clamp holds the glass and carries the arm away from the face. It is the only place where the two browns touch, which is why the metal reads as a joint first and an ornament second. The same gold tone returns at the bridge, in a much plainer shape, and nowhere else on the front.

Wearing a pair with nothing around the lens

Without a rim, the outline you see from across a room is the brow line and the two gold fittings, not a closed shape. The arms disappear into the hair or against the side of the head, helped by their slim tapered tips. Which outline suits best depends on where the brow line falls, and the full range of frame shapes is set out silhouette by silhouette.

Seen from the side, the arm brown stays opaque where the lens brown gives way: that contrast is the quickest way to tell the two apart. Everything else to wear it with sits under scarves, brooches and seasonal pieces.