The inaugural LOFTxTEF Awards, a collaboration between Loft Eyewear Shows and The Eyewear Forum (TEF) online magazine, was hosted at Loft Studios in New York on 22 March.

Celebrating bold and innovative design, a jury representing optometrists and eyewear fashion journalists, nominated six brands for each of the four categories: fashion frame, fashion sunglass, technical frame and technical sunglass. Optometrists from across the world were also encouraged to vote for their favourite entries online.

Blake Kuwahara won the fashion frame category for his Larabee design, expanding on his signature “frame-within-a-frame” laminated constructions, and the fashion sunglass category for his Moore sunglass frames. Theo Eyewear won in technical, for its new aluminium design Apollo, while best technical sunglass was won by Rolf Spectacles for its high-end titanium frames.