TIM PARR
Photos by Jake Chessum
It used to be as we got older and started to need reading glasses, the only option were those “granny” glasses sold in the drugstore, demi-frames that sat on the edge of your nose. They were called granny glasses for a reason. Wearing readers made you look old. All that changed when CADDIS came along, reinventing the category, making readers — and getting older — look cool.
The opening paragraph on their about page reads: “CADDIS is calling bullshit on 50 is the new 40, on the whole fountain of youth illusion, on the many industries that are profiting on vanity and fear of age, on the concept of ‘aging gracefully’ and on the notion of raging against the dying of the light.” But that was not the original idea for the brand. It was to reinvent the category, because “the product sucked”, said Tim Parr, the founder of CADDIS, in a recent conversation with STYLE of SPORT.
I met Tim Parr by chance in the CADDIS shop in the West Village of Manhattan a couple of weeks ago. I was there picking out glasses for a photo shoot. He asked if I needed help, that he “kind of worked there.” We started chatting and I asked him what he actually did in the store. He smiled and told me he’d started the company. As the universe had presented this opportunity, I asked if I could interview him for STYLE of SPORT. Five days later we were chatting over coffee about the evolution of CADDIS, how it all started, and what’s to come. Read More
