Her L.A. Eyeworks boutique, which she opened with a friend and fellow optician, was a pioneer in turning ordinary frames into bold, artistic accessories.
Gai Gherardi, a Los Angeles optician who with a partner attracted a celebrity clientele by pioneering the notion that eyeglass frames did not have to be dull but rather could be fashion statements of individuality, died on March 16 at her home in Hollywood. She was 78.
Her sister, Heather Gherardi, said the cause was bile duct cancer, which she learned she had last month.
“Glasses afford spontaneity,” Ms. Gherardi told The New York Times Magazine in 1993. “They offer the possibility of a multitude of changes in your persona; they’re a great accessory, a great prop.”
“Contacts are rigid. They’re no fun,” she added. “You may see better in them, but you can’t look better in them.”
A gregarious personality who dressed in bold colors, Ms. Gherardi opened her shop, L.A. Eyeworks, on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles in 1979 with her friend and fellow optician Barbara McReynolds. Ms. Gherardi led the design of fashionable, limited-edition frames that are known for their sharp angles, unusual shapes and striking hues and marketed with playful names, like Rooster, Whirly Bird and Mx. Busy. In 1993, the shop began using lasers to engrave metal frames with patterns, like maps of Southern California and the United States.