Shades of Summer : Sunglasses Sell, Sell, Sell With No End in Sight

You want sunglasses? Amsuk Lee’s got sunglasses. All shapes, colors, qualities, prices. He’s got $180 designer shades and $4 no-names. You want brand names? He’s got Ray-Ban and Vuarnet, Porsche and Sun Cloud. You want trendy? He’s got wraparounds and Wayfarers, Jack Nicholsons and Jackie Os.

Check these out: rear vision. As seen on TV! Perfect here in Venice. Keep an eye on the pickpockets and weirdos. Mail order, you pay $30. Here, six bucks.

You want to haggle? Amsuk Lee will haggle. He better, because he’s got competition from the 22 other dealers of sunglasses along Ocean Front Walk, because this is the summer of the sunglasses glut. They sell and sell but the storeroom stays full.

The lean Korean immigrant is haggling now with a tall, blond customer from Denmark. Lars Ramskov is one of the thousands of people cruising the Venice bazaar on this day. Most peruse cheap sunglasses displayed like mutant butterflys. Ramskov eyes models locked in glass cases, like precious gems.

In a quick minute, Lee and Ramskov have closed the deal on half a dozen Ray-Bans for $40 each. Ramskov plans to take the Wayfarers and aviators to his pals back home. “They cost about $80 in Denmark. I’ll sell them for $50,” the Danish connection explained. “They’re happy and I’m happy. Everybody is happy.”

Sunshine has been good to Lee. So have the sunglass factories of Korea and Taiwan. So have all those celebrities wearing shades to restaurants and Laker games. So has, in a way, that hole in the ozone layer over the South Pole, letting in all those cataract-causing ultraviolet rays. “UV Protection,” promise the little stickers on Lee’s merchandise.

Whatever the reasons, a record 183 million pairs of sunglasses were sold in the United States last year, according to the Sunglass Assn. of America. That is 124% more than the 82 million sold in 1982.

How many sunglasses are sold in Los Angeles--in Venice, for that matter--is anybody’s guess. “L.A. is the sun capital of the world and a fashion capital. Sunglasses are just an integral part of the life style,” said Ewa Martinoff, director of marketing for Tropic-Cal, which handles such brand names as Sun Cloud, Liz Claiborne and Body Glove.

“The product really started to take off when people looked at sunglasses as a fashion accessory,” said Gilbert Gass, marketing director of Wilshire Designs and a spokesman for the sunglasses association. “Multiple ownership is very big.”

Sunglasses come in two classes: originals that retail anywhere from $30 to several hundreds of dollars (perhaps with 14 karat frames) and imitations typically pressed from plastic in Asia. The counterfeit labeling that has become a problem for makers of timepieces and jeans has not plagued the sunglasses industry. Buyers appear more swayed by style than brand name, mavens say.

Different Looks

There are trends within the trend, said Ron Longsdorf, Tropic-Cal’s vice president for design.

There is the sport look, with its fluorescent frames and mirrored lenses. The football player known as The Boz, for example, promotes Gargoyle. Then there is “the retro look”--the James Dean, the Brigitte Bardot, the John Lennon, the Blues Brothers. (Before the actor took a shine to them, the Nicholson was known as The Nerd.)

Longsdorf fingered a pair with lenses that are round, flat and very dark. “This one,” he said, “we call ‘The Blind Man Look.’ ”

At the high end of the sunglasses market, the big news is that the industry is working with the Food and Drug Administration to develop uniform standards for UV protection and labeling. Longsdorf, Gass and others see such labeling as a marketing advantage--a lure that may persuade buyers inclined toward imitations to buy originals. UV protection claims on plastic sunglasses are “ambiguous,” Longsdorf said.

Big News

At the low end, the big news is, well, sunglasses. A great swarm of sunglasses has driven prices to new lows. Gass reported seeing a bin full of cheapos at Sears priced at $1.25: “They had rubber frames with polycarbonate lenses. Or maybe acetate. . . . They were just blowing them out.”

Jay Lee, an importer of imitations, wears a pained smile as he sits in his garment district storeroom, surrounded by boxes containing 360,000 units. The sunglasses that retail in department stores for $20 or in Venice for $10, Lee purchased for $6 per dozen in Taiwan and $11 per dozen in Korea. The Taiwanese factory workers, Lee said, make about $10 per day.

He needs to move his merchandise. Jay Lee said he, like many Korean immigrants, started in the wig business, switching to sunglasses in 1980. Most of his customers, he said, are fellow Koreans like Amsuk Lee, who is not related.

Jay Lee said this might be his last year in sunglasses. One reason, he said, is the Taiwanese competition. Taiwanese immigrants, with strong ties back home, are giving the Koreans a run for their money. Lee has heard stories of Taiwanese who plan to immigrate, liquidating their assets, buying cases of sunglasses and then bringing them to the United States to sell to wholesalers or at swap meets. Members of the Taiwan Coordination Council say the practice is not commonplace, but it would certainly beat the exchange rate for dollars.

A Lock on Venice

The Koreans, however, still have a lock on Venice. All 23 sunglasses emporiums on Ocean Front Walk are owned by Koreans, said Amsuk Lee, who is vice president of the Korean Venice business coalition.

A teacher in his homeland, Amsuk Lee started his new life in Los Angeles as a refrigerator repairman before opening his first sunglass stand here in 1982. Now he has two stands and a clothing shop. He is open seven days a week year-round. “He has a day off,” his son explained, “only when it rains.”

The foot traffic is fabulous. So is, of course, the roller-skating traffic.

Beverly Hills psychiatrist Barnett Salzman, 50, wheeled up to Lee’s shop. Salzman has some $185 Persols, but does not wear them to Venice. “They’re my Beverly Hills sunglasses.”

He was shopping for his 7-year-old son, but also chose some violet wraparounds for himself. They were priced at $6 for one, $5 for the other.

“Hey,” Salzman called out to Lee, “how about $10 for both?”