Eyewear brand Persol recently invited American author Bret Easton Ellis to be the ambassador of its new Typewriter series. The capsule collection includes four new styles – two sunglasses and two pairs of optical frames – inspired by the aesthetic nuances of a traditional typewriter. The new and improved metallic bridges are gilded with subtle etching; the rivets emulate the keys of an old typewriter; the series title is etched along the stem in classic typewriter font, and the tips boast a radial motif in decorative homage to the typewriter’s design. For the visually-impaired and creatively-astute writer, maximum flexibility and smoothness is ensured by three Meflecto cylinders placed inside each frame.

Persol released a black-and-white campaign video, directed by Sherif Hamza, to accompany the launch of the Typewriter series, in which Mr Easton Ellis floats out of majestic silhouette before the camera zooms into a typewriter, its keys glistening obscenely. Against a desert backdrop, the writer becomes both the hunter and the hunted. The camera captures a series of intimate moments in the writing process: sliding the paper into the latch, commanding the words to fill the page; and, more profoundly, removing one’s glasses in frustration when they don’t, as if the vital literary senses have been deactivated at once. In the campaign images, photographed by Tom Craig, Persol promises reprieve four archetypal “writing moments” and “literary instants” to inspire the modern wordsmith.