According to Ahlem Manai-Platt, unlike some of the high-end eyewear brands out there, her sunglasses are not supposed to just sit on a shelf and be looked at. “Our frames don’t wear you,” she says. “They’re well-made and, yes, expensive but they’re there to be worn.” 

Ahlem launched in 2014 in Venice, Los Angeles, and the brand is now rapidly expanding its retail footprint to New York, San Francisco and most recently arriving in Paris’s Rue du Dragon. While the San Francisco shop encapsulates Ahlem’s minimalist Californian aesthetic, in…