Larry Sands

By: Kelly Carson | May 23, 2008 | Profile

Keegan Gibbs

“There was an optometrist on the fifth floor of some office building, with an aquarium and a dead rubber tree plant, and that’s where you went to get your eye glasses. You had six frames to choose from. I knew that was wrong, so I changed that.”

Five years after his high school peers voted him “least likely to succeed” Larry Sands was the owner of a Jag and a chain of 5 optical shops in Southern Missouri. Not bad for the boy from. As Sands achieved his first enormous success with eyewear, he actually walked away from it all. He sold those stores to start his rock band Bartok’s Mountain named after the composer Bartok. That was 1962. For the next eight years he toured the country with his rock band, Bartok’s Mountain, opening for legendary bands like Led Zeppelin, Vanilla Fudge, and Sly and the Family Stone. Sands had answered this calling, as he always thought of himself as a songwriter and performer, first and foremost.

Restless on the road, but enjoying every minute, Sands began to feel the need again for change and was compelled to return to his business. He believed that the music industry would have eventually killed him (seven of his bandmates eventually died from the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle). “Music was changing and just going places that I couldn’t go because I didn’t have any hip-hop talent. I felt like I had other things to finish. I just kept thinking, ‘That damn optical business, I’m going to do something with that.’ ” Sands and OSA were reunited and the rest is history.

In 1970, in Kansas City, Mo., Sands opened the first optical boutique in the United States and started carrying high-end designer frames. Sands was back in business. A couple of months later, while vacationing in Aspen, Colo., Sands realized that this glamorous ski town, with its many ostentatious displays of wealth and conspicuous consumption at every turn, lacked a single optical shop. Certain he was onto something, Sands called to pick the brain of his old buddy and confidant Dr. Dan Davis, a successful optometrist. Davis’ reaction to Sands’ discovery was not encouraging. “People don’t buy glasses while they’re on vacation, Larry,” he said. “They want to wait and come back home to their own family doctor to get glasses. That way, if they have a problem, he’s right there to fix it for them.” But despite Dr. Davis’ voice of reason, Sands felt compelled to listen to his own intuition, and went on to prove his friend wrong.

Sands opened The Optical Shop of Aspen later that year (less than a year after opening his first Kansas City store). He immediately renamed the Kansas City store, and OSA was officially born. Sands, it seems, had been right on target: “Within 60 days of opening in Aspen, we realized there was an untapped, international luxury market that came to town to ski, but also to shop, and they all wanted fabulous eye glasses.” As Sands recalls, “The problem with this industry in the early ’70s was that there weren’t great eyeglasses. You had to make them, create them, go to Europe and get them — scramble to get them.”  Sands, never one to back down, went on to not only hunt down existing eyewear that met his clients’ standards, but launched his own unique designs as well. To this day, Sands is still given credit for creating this new, luxury eyewear market. Reluctant to take credit for birthing this industry or making it the height of fashion, Sands humbly admits, “Maybe it was already there and people were just waiting for some good stuff.”

Keegan Gibbs

There’s no denying that Sands’ eyewear design concepts have been copied by many. His influence is everywhere. In ’76, Sands created a one-of-a-kind pair of 18-karat gold frames laced with 2 carats of diamonds, and sold it for $12,000. Selling this kind of luxury item to the public, at that time, had never been attempted. It was the beginning of elevating eyewear to a piece of wearable art. Glasses, Sands knew, were no longer just for reading; they were becoming a must-have fashion statement.

Today the rocker lives on in his innovative concepts for Chrome Hearts Eyewear, a label that has become close to his heart. In 2002, Sands acquired a license to create what he calls the “finest luxury eyewear brand in the world.”

“Chrome Hearts is just the coolest shit on Earth,” he says. “I’m blessed that they licensed and trusted me to create eyewear and represent their brand, trusted me with keeping it clean, yet distinctively Chrome Hearts.” Sands’ passions for his newest venture runs deep.

For the past 35 years, Sands feels he has kept a “dull-pointed business” interesting; he’s been copied, but never duplicated. In March 2007, OSA opened in Malibu. The store, in keeping with OSA’s luxury boutique experience, features an array of the highest quality of beautifully designed frames.

A recent Malibu resident, Sands watches over his new store closely. He’s rooted here now, after striking a deal with his wife: If she let him buy a boat to sail around the Bahamas for a couple of years, he would agree to settle down and start a family. They chose Malibu. “It’s the most calm, casual, easiest place I’ve ever been. Nobody cares. Maybe that’s what money does to you. Ever notice how casual people are at the grocery store? You go, ‘God, that looks like a pair of pajamas. That’s a teddy on that girl shopping for groceries.’ Where can you get that? I love that.”

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