Anna-Karin Karlsson: Sunglasses made for icons

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

From a quiet forest outside Stockholm to the world’s most glamorous runways, Swedish designer Anna-Karin Karlsson has built one of fashion’s most distinctive eyewear brands. Her bold, sculptural glasses and sunglasses are worn by Beyoncé, Snoop Dogg, Madonna and Elton John – yet their inspiration comes from a quiet life surrounded by trees and animals. Cultural journalist Anna Åkerlund steps inside Karlsson’s world. We discover how the designer blends fantasy with craftsmanship, and challenges the conventions of both global luxury brands and Swedish restraint.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:07.0	She's not just a designer, but she's an artist.
0:15.0	She makes things that you never thought possible work, and you get hooked, because it's like nothing else that you've ever seen.
0:24.3	Welcome to the documentary podcast from the BBC World Service.
0:29.1	I'm Swedish journalist Anna Oakhilund.
0:32.2	And for this episode of In the Studio,
0:35.2	I'm delving into the creative mind of Anna Karin Carlson, who makes some of the
0:40.4	world's most iconic glasses and sunglasses frames.
0:45.0	I need to push myself or push the things I'm making to, I wouldn't say perfection, but to the way I see it.
0:57.8	And that's why sometimes things take a long time when I make them.
1:01.5	Like me, Anna Corin-Karlson lives in Sweden, a tiny Nordic nation with a population of just over 10 million people.
1:10.5	But her bold, bejeweled frames are collected, coveted and celebrated by some of the biggest
1:16.4	global music stars of the last few decades, like Beyonce, Madonna and Snoop Dogg, as well as
1:23.9	other fashion fans across the planet.
1:27.5	We have an optical shop in Ghana, which does luxury eyewear.
1:34.7	And one of our biggest, biggest products is Anna Karin Eyewear.
1:42.5	I go to, and I wear Anna Karin Carlson to full board meetings.
1:46.5	And people are looking at me like, oh, I could never pull that off.
1:48.5	I'm like, that's right. You could never pull this off.
1:50.9	Yes, absolutely right.
1:53.5	Those are some of the clients at the glitzy event.
1:57.1	Anna Karin is hosting at Paris Fashion Week to celebrate the launch of her latest collection.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 18 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.