Ti Kwa
Familiar with many cultures and contexts, Ti Kwa, owner and designer for RIGARDS eyewear, has an easy demeanour that belies his design genius.
Robots, manta rays, infinity symbols, flying buttresses: all have inspired Ti Kwa’s frame designs. This is a man rich in imagination and manifestly capable in business. A man of the world, with a rich stew of experiences that make his life and work something special, indeed.
Born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to parents who gave him a ‘strict yet liberal upbringing’, Kwa was drawn to art at a young age, inspired by his mother, who was a talented dressmaker, and his paternal grandmother and great-grandmother who were master embroiderers (think line, texture, curves, colour). At age eight, Kwa started his first business. “I created comic strips starring a gang of characters who wreaked havoc in school, and I charged my classmates five cents to read them. Business was good!”
At age 16, life took a rather drastic turn when Kwa’s parents ‘incarcerated’ him in Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, PA. Being the only Malaysian for miles around was not a problem for Kwa, who always found it easy to connect with others. However, he threw off the rigid discipline and conformity of the academy at the earliest opportunity in favour of the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City. What a shift! From there, Kwa moved to Seattle, attracted by the grunge music scene, where he also took a business degree from the University of Washington. So: buzz cuts, fashion, business and Smashing Pumpkins: not a bad recipe for a varied life!
Kwa worked as a designer in leather goods and footwear for several years. Lucky for us, he needed eyewear from a young age. “Having experienced the worst in frames, I thought it would be fun to make my own glasses. It became my personal project to make frames unlike any others, something I could treasure and make a part of my story, and that could evolve with me over time, not unlike my old Cordovan boots.”
Turning this personal quest into a business was natural for Kwa and so RIGARDS was born in 2012, with the goal of creating frames that speak to others in a way that is fresh but approachable.
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RIGARDS frames are distinguished by finding the right balance of yin and yang. “We like to embrace contrasts, tempering hard angles with silken lines to facilitate a seamless and positive energy flow around the frame,” says Kwa. “This is good feng shui.”
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Recognition from within the industry wasn’t long in coming. RIGARDS started 2018 with a bang by winning a 2018 iF Design Award, a nice complement to a SILMO d’Or Best Sunglasses Design nomination in 2017. What judges, eyecare professionals and consumers alike appreciate in RIGARDS frames is a transformational marriage of imaginative ideas with natural materials. Horn was the first material of choice for Kwa and continues to be a favourite.
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Another RIGARDS hallmark is their signature finishes. Says Kwa: “We enjoy using our own modified horn-smithing tools and like to create unique effects. Custom finishes like ‘Sanjuro, are inspired by our admiration for the Japanese ‘shibusa’ aesthetic, a concept which sees value in irregular perfection. Applied by hand, this technique produces a texture that is at once rough and refined, adding a fingerprint-like uniqueness. Our compelling ‘Plastron’ finish gives our frames a ‘scaled armor’ appearance. Exclusive finishes like these create a bespoke element to meet customer needs.”
Kwa is passionate about his brand and 100 per cent involved in the entire process. “In the six years since our launch, we have followed an organic model to progressively grow RIGARDS from a single product line (genuine horn) to a more diversified portfolio. We want to keep supporting our loyal and new-found customers with fresh innovative product lines and the same dedication to quality and artistry that they’ve come to expect of RIGARDS. In Canada we have been blessed to have the support of reputable eyecare retailers like Brass Monocle (Calgary), Bruce Eyewear (Vancouver), Gaudet Optical (Halifax), Hanley’s Eyewear Boutique (Ancaster), Alain Assedo (Montreal) and Speer Opticians (St. Catharines).”
Kwa lives in Hong Kong, with his wife and twin daughters, where most of his frames are made in his private atelier. Life is more than busy: “I try to be involved in raising the girls as much as their mother, which doesn’t leave me much time (read: no time). I also have a love of all things well-made and exploring old places and new ones.”
When asked who in all the world inspires him, either in business, art or design, Kwa earnestly points to Japanese fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto: “70-plus and still beating the system,” he enthuses. I suspect that young designers already have their eyes on Ti Kwa as a major inspiration. I know I do.
By Paddy Kamen
