For Changing The Way We Look At Wearables

Laurya Morris

Design lead, Specatcles, Snap

 

- Austin Carr

Snapchat surprised everyone last fall by changing its company name to Snap and introducing Spectacles, the elegant camera-equipped sunglasses that capture videos to share on its popular social media platform. That Spectacles could succeed in being the most exciting new gadget launch of the year in a field where Google Glass failed and Microsoft and Magic Leap have been slow to commercialize a compelling product is a testament to Lauryn Morris, who happened to have a decade of experience in wearable computing and high-end fashion eye wear. Morris had studied industrial design in college, where, for her senior thesis project, she devised a conceptual “head-worn device that allows you to experience music in ways other than hearing it,” she explains, such as through vibration and color. “It created this immersive experience that totally fascinated me.” After graduating, Morris designed eyewear collections for the likes of Michael Kors, Zac Posen, and Diane von Furstenberg, but didn’t want “to get pigeonholed in fashion,” she says, so she consulted for various companies tinkering with wearable technology. “With eyewear, you’re designing a product that enables people to feel beautiful—som