Titanium

Lighter than you expect. Stronger than it looks. Made in a workshop that has done almost nothing else since 1923.

A single element. Atomic number 22.

Titanium has the best strength-to-weight ratio of any metal we could have used, which is the only reason a frame this fine holds its shape. It will not corrode, tarnish or rust — not in sweat, not in seawater, not in time. And because it is commercially pure rather than a mixed alloy, there is no nickel in it. If metal frames have ever marked your skin, nickel is almost certainly why.

It is also extremely difficult to work. Titanium seizes cutting tools, resists welding, and discolours if you cut it wrongly. It took until 1981 for anyone to make it behave as a spectacle frame, and that happened in Sabae, Japan.

Made in Sabae

Sabae has been making spectacles since 1905 and produces around nine in every ten frames made in Japan. Our frames are made there by Sanko Kogaku, whose history begins in 1923, when founder Shinichi Miwa started making spectacle frames by hand in the former village of Kawada.

Over the following century they kept asking how spectacles could feel better on a face: Japan’s first celluloid frames in 1940, fine-rimmed frames in 1978, spring-material frames in 1980. A history of small refinements with a considerable cumulative effect.

Each frame passes through around fifty stages over about six weeks, most of them by hand. Titanium does not forgive a rushed stage, so there aren’t any.

Drawn for Cubitts, not bought from a catalogue

Almost every metal frame on sale is assembled from stock parts — stock bridges, stock hinges, stock tips, bought by the thousand and combined into something that can be called a design. Each of ours was drawn for us and for nothing else.

The temple tips take their form from Constantin Brâncuși’s Bird in Space. The shape is practical as well as sculptural: it grips behind the ear and balances the frame rather than clamping it.

The bridge and nose pads are formed as one continuous piece, with no join anywhere. A join is both a weak point and a pressure point, so we removed it.

The eyewire tapers along its edge, so the edge of the lens disappears into the metal instead of sitting proud of it. The frame reads as one fine line rather than a lens in a holder.

The rimlock — the mechanism that opens to admit the lens — sets a circle against a faceted block, angled across the front and curved behind, so it reads differently depending on where you stand.

Fine crosshatching marks the two places where titanium meets skin: the temple tips and the face of each nose pad. It is drawn from the iron latticework of the King’s Cross gasholders, braced on the diagonal because a lattice is the strongest way to use the least metal. On the frame it does the same honest work — grip where a polished surface would slip.

On the reverse of the bridge sits a stamped Cubitts rivet: a discreet maker’s mark, taking its cue from the goldsmith’s hallmark. A record rather than an advertisement.

Finishes

Antique Gold, Shiny Gold, Shiny Silver and Gunmetal, all ion plated — deposited in a vacuum chamber and bonded to the titanium at a molecular level, rather than painted on. It does not chip; it wears, slowly.

Antique Gold is the one that takes three goes: a base layer, then a deliberately darker textured layer, then the gold over both. The dark coat never quite disappears, so the gold reads warmer and older than a single plating ever could.

The range

Our titanium frames run across panto, round, square, hexagonal, oval and rimless shapes, in two or three sizes depending on the model. You can see the titanium spectacles here, or the titanium sunglasses here.

Every frame comes fitted with ZEISS ClearView lenses with DuraVision coatings as standard, in an aluminium case, with an artist-designed cleaning cloth and a frame service after a year.