This story is part of Image’s April issue, “Reverie” — an invitation to lean into the spaces of dreams and fantasy. Enjoy the journey.
What is a dream if not a vacation for the mind? To get lost in a reverie is a momentary respite from the prison of the possible — a chance to experience the impossible for a second. If you can’t change your surroundings, you can at least change your perception of them. Vacations are dreams where you actually can change your surroundings. They’re fantasies of how you might live if you were a different person, with a different life and different priorities. A whirlwind romance, a chance meeting that could change your career prospects, a series of awful wardrobe choices that fortunately none of your friends or colleagues will ever see. It’s all possible on vacation. The greatest luxury of a vacation is the right to reinvent yourself, to see the world differently. And there’s no better way to see the world differently than through a beautiful pair of sunglasses.
Nikola wears Cartier Signature Cs; Kenzo rose fitted shirt in faded pink mesh polyamide; rose turtleneck top in faded pink mesh polyamide; kitten heel in leather covered by faded pink Kenzo rose printed textile.
Swap wears wears Cartier Signature Cs; Amiri men’s floral beaded sweater vest; men’s covered sequin layered shorts; Saint Laurent shoes from Neiman Marcus Beverly Hills.
I own at least a dozen pairs, of varying cost and quality — Gucci, l.a. Eyeworks, Persol, Garrett Leight and maybe one or two from the bin at CVS. But if I were to imagine the ideal vacation, I’d wish for these Cartier Signature C sunglasses to fall out of the sky and into my lap. A striking pair of sunglasses recontextualizes your entire face, hiding your eyes and wrapping you in a sense of mystery that otherwise wouldn’t be there on your same old lumpy visage. They also shroud the environment around you in a smoky haze, making everything you see more dramatic.
To rock a pair of the iconic frames is to immediately signal to people around you that you don’t just want to stand out; you need to.
The Cartier Signature Cs are rimless and come in a variety of colors, with my personal pick being the green lenses. So your vacation is going to be kind of green most of the time. But that revision of the natural is what dreams are all about. Real dreams don’t usually take place in normal colors. They’re black and white or red or blue tinted. The gold finish on the temples is what justifies the exorbitant price tag and commands attention. There’s a gentle curve to the bridge at the front of the frames and what almost looks like horseshoes on the hinges that connect the temples to the lenses. In all dreams, there’s a bit of whimsy.
Trying on the Signature Cs is an experience unto itself. Cartier’s store is one big fantasy world, filled with objects most people can’t afford but lust after. It’s a favorite of the famous and the would-be famous. Seeing Timothée Chalamet in a Cartier Crash watch recently made me want to sell all my plasma just to afford a knockoff. Tom Cruise wore a pair of Cartier aviators in the latest “Mission: Impossible” film, and Michael Douglas wore a showstopping pair as the loathsome Gordon Gekko in “Wall Street.” Larger-than-life shades for larger-than-life characters. The Cartier store is as lofty as the celebrities that wear their goods, intimidating to a normal human being like me. I tried on the Signature Cs and immediately wanted to take them off. Not only did I not want to break them and be on the hook for more than a grand in product but I also just didn’t feel like I should be wearing them. More so than even the fancier frames I own, this felt like fighting above my weight class. I shuffled out as soon as possible.
Watching your dream play out before your eyes in waking life is like inhabiting an alternate reality: hair-raising, confronting, wrecking.
For most, sunglasses are a disposable item — something to lose on a long flight or sit on by accident. My girlfriend has gone through more than a few pairs in the two years we’ve been together. It’s what keeps most people from investing in a pair of luxury sunglasses. They can’t be investment pieces, because they are sure to vanish eventually. This is why I dream about the Signature Cs. I can’t think of anything more luxurious than taking something disposable and elevating it; to be so rich and fancy that something people accidentally drop in a sewer drain or leave in a hotel bathroom while on vacation can cost $1,200.
Nikola wears wears Cartier Signature Cs; Courrèges textured vinyl crop jacket; vinyl re-edition mini-skirt; Ferragamo Shoes from Neiman Marcus Beverly Hills.
Swap wears Cartier Signature Cs; Amiri men’s floral beaded sweater vest; men’s covered sequin layered shortsfrom Neiman Marcus Beverly Hills.
In the grand vacation of my dreams, I’m by the pool most of the day. Everyone I meet flashes a smile at me because I’m so interesting. My incredible, rare sunglasses are making people stop and do a double-take, wondering if I’m some kind of celebrity or visiting dignitary. I’m just a regular guy on holiday, but they don’t have to know that. Martinis magically appear in my hand every few minutes, but I’m never sick. For some reason, the rice balls at Capri Club are the only food on offer, but I’m not even in Eagle Rock. Everything I want is there, and everyone wants me there.
Whether you’re commuting across L.A. for a long-distance relationship or a short getaway from home, Gucci luggage is the ideal situation of the intracity adventurer who wishes to stunt.
But why is it that we dream in broad daylight? What makes us yearn for something more than what is there in front of us, especially here, in L.A., of all places? For decades, people have been coming to Los Angeles to chase their dreams. As a great woman once said, “We come to this place for magic.” You hope that in L.A. you will be discovered, respected, elevated and understood. For most, that doesn’t happen, or it does on a much smaller scale than what they imagined. And not everyone’s dreams are the same, of course, though I suppose you could say most of them involve being rich. Even if you don’t explicitly want to be rich, the natural byproduct of success in the entertainment industry.
Swap wears Cartier Signature Cs and Simone Rocha RTW Spring 2024 shirt, pants from Neiman Marcus Beverly Hills.
Nikola wears Cartier Signature Cs; Givenchy RTW Spring ‘24; Rabanne jupe fringe trim mini-skirt; tweed fringe trim cropped tank top; Bottega Veneta shoes from Neiman Marcus Beverly Hills.
The reality of life here, the necessity of survival, and the limits of one’s ambition chip away at the dream day by day. Paying your ever-increasing rent, bowing to the whims of trillion-dollar conglomerates that see your work as merely a line on a spreadsheet, and boy, how about that traffic? Eventually, you roll your eyes when people talk about how hard it is to live in L.A., because you’re doing it. It’s not a dream, it’s reality. So, what does one do when they live in the Dream Factory (or, Dream Factory-Adjacent, if you are trying to save money)? They leave.
Vacations are a thing not everyone can afford. Just the act of picking up and escaping the city is itself a luxury. A pair of sunglasses, even modest ones, can connect the wearer to the feeling of being in paradise. That paradise might be Van Nuys, but that’s all connected to perception. How you look at a strip mall or a gas station defines what it is and what it means. Maybe you can’t stand eating the same food or looking at the same faces every day, but have you considered that here, in L.A., you are living a version of the dream that brought you here? Maybe you can’t afford sunglasses that cost $1,200 (you probably can’t), but you can always find a new way to see the world. And that’s actually free.
Producer: Mere Studios
Models: Nikola Bogdanovich, Swap
MUA: Carla Perez
Hair: Adrian Arredondo
Photo assistant: Sadie Spezzano
Lighting design: Ethan Benavidez
Styling assistant: Izzy Huynh
