From Collector to Chronicler

When Corey Shapiro launched Vintage Frames Company (VFC) in 2008, he did more than just sell rare eyewear—he began curating a visual history of pop culture one lens at a time. What started as a personal obsession with vintage frames quickly transformed into a full-fledged cultural archive, attracting celebrities like Jay-Z and Lady Gaga and drawing collectors from all corners of the globe. With over 1.5 million pieces spanning seven decades, VFC became a vault of vision and attitude.

But in 2018, something shifted. With demand outpacing supply, Shapiro evolved from a collector to a craftsman, launching the now-iconic Detroit Player frame—a nod to bespoke, legacy, and street swagger. That debut design opened the floodgates, empowering the VFC team to tell their own stories. Now, for Spring/Summer 2025, Vintage Frames Company dives into one of the most iconic, raw, and controversial films of the 1990s: Larry Clark’s KIDS.

This collection is not a mere homage. It is a visual reimagining of a cult classic, channeled through acetate, curvature, and attitude. Welcome to the SS25 KIDS capsule.

Released in 1995, Larry Clark’s KIDS remains one of the most jarring and poetic depictions of urban youth culture ever put to screen. With a script by Harmony Korine and a cast of first-time actors plucked from New York’s skate and art scenes—including Chloë Sevigny, Rosario Dawson, and Harold Hunter—the film captured a raw slice of ’90s adolescence marked by recklessness, freedom, and vulnerability.

KIDS wasn’t about stylization—it was about unfiltered truth. The film’s grit, its grain, its handheld urgency—it all conveyed an era of growing up fast, feeling everything, and being seen before knowing what that visibility meant. Today, nearly 30 years later, its legacy lives on through fashion, skate culture, and streetwear’s evolution.

Vintage Frames Company’s SS25 line doesn’t aim to romanticize KIDS. Instead, it treats the film as a cultural artifact, worthy of preservation and reinterpretation.

The Collection: Five Characters, Five Frames

Each pair in the SS25 collection corresponds to a key figure in KIDS, with its design philosophy rooted in both cinematic character and functional fashion. All five models are handcrafted from retro black acetate, nodding to the ’90s New York mood. But each frame also carries a distinct silhouette—built not just to recall the character, but to channel their energy.

The Telly

Named after the film’s protagonist, Telly is the boy who doesn’t stop talking—the self-proclaimed ladies’ man whose actions drive much of the narrative. VFC’s “Telly” frame is a timeless design that mirrors the boy’s delusion of control with rounded lenses and drop-temple side branches—a look that feels both vintage and calculated.

It’s a callback to late-’80s Bronx attitude, streetwise but introspective. Think: Ralph Lauren preppy meets LES hustler. These frames would sit just as comfortably on a Dazed model in London as they would on a DJ in Bed-Stuy.

The Ruby

Named after Chloë Sevigny’s character, The Ruby reflects a moment of pause and awareness. She’s the film’s emotional center, forced into clarity while everyone around her spirals. The glasses that bear her name are slim and angular, a contemporary update to The Matrix-era wraparound—a style deeply rooted in late-’90s femme rebellion.

The Ruby speaks to women who remember the era when eyewear was part shield, part show. Its soft lines offer mystery; its minimalism offers edge. It’s the most runway-ready frame in the collection—designed for movement, but made for self-reflection.

The Jennie

Playful, colorful, and wide-eyed, The Jennie is the lightest frame in both tone and spirit. With oversized circular lenses and sheer color tints (lavender, peach, rose), these frames echo the contradictions of adolescence—naïveté and awareness dancing in one pair of glasses.

Inspired by Rosario Dawson’s breakout role, The Jennie balances fun with boldness. These frames are made for daydreaming on rooftops, skating into the sunset, and dancing until the streetlights come on. In other words: a love letter to lost innocence.

The Casper

Defiant. Messy. Unapologetic. The Casper channels the chaotic charisma of Justin Pierce’s character—possibly the most divisive in the film. His namesake frames are round, assertive, and thick-rimmed, with a certain punk undertone baked into the silhouette.

More than any other model in the collection, The Casper challenges the notion of wearability. These aren’t frames for everyone. But they weren’t made for everyone. They’re made for the misfits who still find beauty in the broken.

The Hunter

The final design is a tribute to the late Harold Hunter—a true legend in skateboarding and New York culture. Smooth, athletic, and deeply respected, Hunter’s character in KIDS wasn’t just comic relief—he was connective tissue.

The Hunter frame reflects this grace. The design is curved and aerodynamic, mimicking both the natural flow of a skateboard and the organic confidence of someone who belongs in motion. These are the most physically ergonomic frames in the collection—designed to move, not sit still.

Design & Material Integrity: Craft Meets Culture

Each frame in the SS25 capsule is cut from premium Italian acetate—a material chosen for its weight, flexibility, and ability to hold deep color saturation. All frames feature VFC’s signature core-wire detailing along the temples, providing both structure and subtle branding.

What makes this collection resonate is its faithfulness to analog authenticity. While trends lean increasingly toward 3D-printed minimalism and clear-plastic futurism, VFC returns to the tactile weight of the past. These frames feel like they came from the ’90s, but their execution is entirely contemporary.

In addition, the brand continues its commitment to limited-batch production, ensuring each pair maintains its boutique value.

From the Streets to the Set: Editorial Energy

To launch the collection, Vintage Frames Company partnered with photographer Sabrina Soormally and stylist Jay Gosselin to create a lookbook shot in downtown Manhattan’s East Village—one of the original locations used in KIDS.

The campaign features real skaters, dancers, and street-cast models who echo the spirit of Clark’s young cast. There are no polished studio portraits here—only film-grain textures, blurred motion, concrete backdrops, and street light shadows. The campaign is equal parts editorial and anthropological.

Each image is a time capsule without ever falling into costume. These frames don’t reenact—they reignite.

Cultural Legacy: Not Just Nostalgia

It would be easy to dismiss the KIDS collection as a nostalgia cash grab. But in VFC’s hands, the concept becomes a cultural conversation piece. Why does KIDS still matter? Why do we keep returning to the ’90s for inspiration?

The answer lies in realness. The ’90s were the last analog decade—before phones filtered us, before surveillance turned public space into performance. VFC’s KIDS-inspired eyewear invites us to see the world as it was—unfiltered, imperfect, alive.

In an era where most luxury brands are mining the past for brand content, VFC mines it for emotional texture. The SS25 collection doesn’t ask us to wear frames. It asks us to see through them.

Thoughts

The Vintage Frames Company SS25 collection, inspired by KIDS, is more than fashion. It’s a cinematic homage, a generational study, and a design exercise in memory. With five distinct styles rooted in raw character, the capsule captures what many brands attempt but few achieve: empathy through eyewear.

These aren’t just accessories. They are objects of transmission—pieces of a film, of a city, of a decade, now recut into something wearable, tangible, and personal.

In an industry that often glorifies surfaces, VFC reminds us that the frame is just the start. What you see—and how you choose to see—makes all the difference.

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