Online glasses retailer Retrospecs in Jazz FM sponsorship

by Jennifer Whitehead, Brand Republic 09-Nov-09, 11:10

LONDON - Online spectacles retailer Retrospecs, purveyor of the "nerdcore" glasses currently favoured by hipsters, has signed up to sponsor Jazz FM's Big Band and Trad music show on Saturdays.

Retrospecs.co.uk is using the sponsorship to promote its Black Eyewear range of 1950s-inspired black plastic designs, favoured by jazz musicians like Dizzy Gillespie and Benny Goodman.

As part of the sponsorship of Bob Sinfield's Saturday afternoon show, Retrospecs is running an online competition for 12 weeks called "Guess The Specs with Bob Sinfield".

This will feature a different bespectacled jazz legend each week with their glasses obscured. Entrants have to identify the glasses from three sets of frames from the Black Eyewear collection to have a chance of winning £100 worth of vouchers.

Robert Roope, owner of Retrospecs, said he had been a fan of jazz for 50 years.

He said: "The Black Eyewear collection that I created was inspired by my love of jazz and was so named to embrace the black American Jazz musicians who were the starting point of the music.

"Great eyewear design, like great jazz, depends on improvisation on basic themes that adds colours to the composition."

'Big Band And Trad With Bob Sinfield' runs on Jazz FM every Saturday from 1pm to 3pm and plays music including Count Basie and Louis Armstrong as well as from current musicians keeping the tradition alive.