FRAMEBUYER / DAWN TO DUSK

A Day in the (Urban) Life of Coco + Breezy

Follow this twin sister design team, which crafts ultra-hip eyewear for the style set, from morning to night

AS TOLD TO EMILY TEEL

Coco, left, and Breezy: eyewear designers and Transitions Optical ambassadors (photo courtesy of Transitions Optical)

At optical trade shows, twin sisters Corianna (Coco) and Brianna (Breezy) Dotson have been mistaken for models wearing someone else’s frames. But these twin sisters, strategic entrepreneurs, and occasional DJs are formidable businesswomen in their own right.

EB caught up with the sought-after designers (and Transitions Optical ambassadors) to follow them on one of their jam-packed, wildly fun days from dawn to dusk in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

7:33 a.m.: We wake up by saying motivating words to one another. See, we live together in a brownstone in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and our rooms are right next to each other. One of us will shout—right through the walls—“Are you excited for life?!” No matter how tired we are, we try to start our day off amazing. When we start our day anxious, or stressing out about work, or rushing, then the rest of the day feels anxious and rushed, so we try to start by meditating, visualizing how we want the day to look and feel, by saying positive things to one another, and then…

7:35 a.m.: …by dancing. Seriously. We start our day listening to our favorite songs and dancing, or doing some yoga stretches, or maybe listening to a podcast to start us off positive.

7:55 a.m.: We head upstairs to the kitchen. We like to cook breakfast together, but today we are on a tight deadline and Miriam, our distributor in the Netherlands, needs to hear from us, so Breezy cooks—oatmeal with chia seeds, almonds, cranberries, and blueberries—and Coco emails. We eat while we work on our laptops, answering emails, but it’s a habit we’re trying to break to just enjoy breakfast instead.

PHOTO BY SIDNEY G.

8:30 a.m.: We don’t take a long time to get ready. Fashion is important to our brand, so when getting dressed for the day we try to live by the idea that our eyewear is the outfit and our clothing is the accessory. We keep one set of each of the frames from our collection and we’ll trade off who gets to wear what. Current favorites: Zesiro, a blue cat-eye with a blue flash lens that we made in partnership with Jolly Rancher, and Ostara, a triangular, flat-top pink frame with a twisted rubber temple from our collection with Twizzler.

9:16 a.m.: Ride the L train to the office. On the train we listen to music on headphones—loudly—and Breezy sketches frame ideas. Riding the subway is a huge source of inspiration. It’s our market research. In New York City, you see all kinds of people. We get to see what people are wearing. That environment is our main source of creative inspiration.

10:05 a.m.: Arrive at the office. We used to run our entire business out of our home, and some of our inventory still lives there, but now we have a shared office space. We touch base with Duane, our third business partner, to see what needs to be done. No pressing meetings until later, so Breezy, who focuses more on the design process, reviews materials working for our new design collaboration with Foot Locker’s new brand, Six:02, Coco and Duane have a quick check-in with Laquan, who handles shipping of our online orders.

11:30 a.m.: Have a phone meeting with our off-site social media team to review content rollout for our collaboration with Hershey’s.

1:20 p.m.: Lunch. Duane was going to grab something, and now everybody’s in on it. We end up walking through the neighborhood to check out a spot we haven’t been to yet.

2:00 p.m.: Planning meeting for upcoming episodes of our podcast, “In the Mix with Coco & Breezy.”

4:00 p.m.: Quick orthodontist appointment to get braces adjusted.

7:45 p.m.: Still at work. We try to go hard on weekdays and keep weekends really free. It’s on weekends that we tend to do our own thing to get some space from each other, to learn on our own and bring back things to teach each other.

10:00 p.m.: DJ a private party for online clothing retailer revolve.com. Wearing: our frames with Transitions lenses. On the speakers: Tokimonsta, Lapalux, Kaytranada, and Jacquees. People are a little slow to start dancing, so one of us goes out on the floor to get things going.

12:36 a.m.: Finally home, but we’re still pretty wound up. We used to be #teamnosleep, but now we’re trying to take better care of ourselves to have a more productive day tomorrow. We try to chill and watch a movie, but we’re both asking so many questions—and also falling asleep—that it’s time for bed!