📸 All images courtesy of Jacques Marie Mage
Jacques Marie Mage have form when it comes to eyewear-as-tribute, having already paid homage to Ayrton Senna, Stanley Kubrick and Bob Dylan over the years. This time, it’s Muhammad Ali, and we’re one of the lucky handful of UK shops getting our hands on the limited edition collection.
Boxer, poet, activist, provocateur, three-time heavyweight champion of the world: Ali was never just one thing, and he knew it. “I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was,” he once claimed, and for once the trash talk turned out to be an understatement. He fought Sonny Liston, he fought George Foreman in the jungles of Zaire, and for a few years in the late ‘60s, he fought the United States government too. Through all of it, on and off the canvas, he did it looking sharp.
This latest JMM collection skips the gloves and the gumshield entirely, taking its cues instead from two of the most quietly powerful moments of Ali’s life. Moments when the cameras caught him not throwing a punch, but making a point.
Kinshasa
Named for the capital of Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo), host city of the “Rumble in the Jungle”. The Kinshasa actually looks back a few years earlier than that legendary fight, inspired by the glasses Muhammad wore to a 1968 UCLA press conference. It was here where Ali, stripped of his title and facing prison for refusing to serve in Vietnam, discussed the state of the nation with calm authority. JMM have taken that same composure and built a circular-shaped frame around it: a commanding silhouette that’s all quiet conviction, no shouting required.
Louisville
Named for the city that raised him, the Louisville takes us to Federal Court in Houston on April 27th, 1967, the day Ali refused to step forward and be inducted into the army. He stood alone, and he stood by his word. Fittingly, the Louisville is the bolder of the two frames here, a rectangular shape with a soft wraparound curve. Moral clarity has never looked so considered.
Both frames are designed in LA and handcrafted in Japan. Each pair arrives in JMM’s signature monograph box in black faux leather, with a handcrafted Italian case (an envelope case for the Kinshasa, a monolith for the Louisville), an oversized cleaning cloth printed with a shot of Ali at “The Thrilla in Manila”, and a letterpress authenticity card signed by the craftsman who made it. No detail spared, much like the man himself.
Discover the Jacques Marie Mage Muhammad Ali collection at Seen Opticians now.
