KUBORAUM Maske sizing: what the mask numbers mean, and which one fits

KUBORAUM is a Berlin brand, and it does not call its frames glasses. It calls them masks. The same line sits on every page of its own site: all masks are entirely dreamed in Berlin, handmade in Italy. The site goes further and says the masks are designed on the face of the wearer, to highlight personality and character, and describes them as cubical rooms where we shelter ourselves. The listings we hold give the plainer translation: Kuboraum is German for cubic room.

That wording has a practical consequence, and it is the reason this guide exists. A frame drawn as a mask starts from the shape it makes on a face and works back to the fit. So the shapes are stranger than most brands attempt, the fronts are flatter and heavier than usual, and the model name carries no size information at all. You cannot read a KUBORAUM by its name. You read it by its three numbers.

We hold 72 KUBORAUM frames across 49 different models. Fifty-two are eyeglasses and 20 are sunglasses. Sixty-four are acetate, six are metal, and two are acetate and metal together. Every one is new and sealed, and every one is on sale: prices run from $365 to $740 against original prices of $590 to $990, which is between a quarter and a little over half off depending on the frame.

The sizes cover more ground than a single brand usually does. Eye sizes run from 39mm to 56mm, bridges from 16mm to 31mm, lens depths from 25mm to 48mm. Measured across the front, which is two eye sizes plus the bridge, the range runs from about 105mm to about 132mm. That is a spread of about 27mm, and it means there is a KUBORAUM here for a narrow face and a KUBORAUM here for a wide one, provided you know which numbers to look for. The rest of this guide is about that.

A KUBORAUM model is a letter, then a number, then a colour. On the brand's own site a full product code is written like P1 BMH: P1 is the model, BMH is the colour. Our listings carry the same two parts. The Maske P1 in Black Matt is coded BMS, and we also hold the same P1 in Sea, coded SEA, and in Black Shine.

The letter is a series, and the brand's own collections are laid out that way. Our stock spans seventeen letters. P is much the largest at 26 frames, then K at 13, F and Y at four each, J, R, T and X at three each, B, H, S and Z at two each, and G, L, N, Q and U at one each.

Here is the part that catches people out. The number is not a size, and it is not a sequence you can read anything into. In our stock the Maske P1 has a 47mm eye, the P8 has 53mm, the P13 has 55mm, the P53 has 55mm and the P74 has 50mm. Within the K series the K4 is 51mm, the K21 is 47mm, the K37 is 55mm and the K41 is 46mm. The number identifies the model. Nothing more.

What the number does fix, almost without exception, is the shape and the measurements across every colour of that model; the only pair in stock that differs at all is the two X6s, by a millimetre of lens height. All three P1s in stock are 47-25-145 with a 45mm lens, at $590 from $790. All three Maske R4s, in Black Matt, Lilac Grey and Havana, are 47-23-145 with a 47mm lens, at $515 from $990. So once a model number fits you, every colour of it fits you, and you can choose on colour alone.

Three models cross the line between optical and sun, and the P8 is the one we hold most of. We hold four Maske P8s, all of them 53-17-145 with a 40mm lens at $515 from $690: Blue and Yellow Havana as eyeglasses, White and Magenta as sunglasses. The listings describe the P8 as a double-bridge aviator. If you want the same frame twice, once clear and once tinted, the P8 gives you the most colours to do it with, and the P2 and P21 each run across both as well.

The table below lists all 72 in stock, sorted by eye size.

Every frame here is listed with three numbers, written 47-25-145. The first is the eye size, the width of one lens in millimetres. The second is the bridge, the gap between the lenses at their closest point. The third is the temple, the length of the arm from hinge to tip. Add two eye sizes to the bridge and you have the width across the front, which is the figure to compare against a frame you already own and like.

Across our 72, eye sizes run from 39mm to 56mm. The median is 50mm, and 50mm is also the single most common size, with 13 frames on it. Grouped: eight frames sit below 47mm, 18 sit at 47 to 49mm, 28 sit at 50 to 52mm, and 18 sit at 53 to 56mm. The middle is crowded and the ends are thin, which is ordinary enough, but the ends are the interesting part, because that is where the difficult fits get solved.

At the narrow end, the Maske Z17 in Gold is 39-27-140, about 105mm across, with a 38mm lens, $515 from $690. Its listing calls it a perfectly round mask in gold metal and notes that narrow fronts are the hard ones to find. Next up is the Maske S2 in Rose at 44-25-145, about 113mm across, with a 42mm lens, $590 from $790.

At the wide end, the Maske X20 in Black Shine is 56-20-145, about 132mm across, which is the widest front we hold. It is a rectangular sunglass with grey lenses and a 31mm lens depth, $440 from $690.

The most useful thing in these numbers is what happens at a single eye size. Thirteen frames sit at 50mm. Their bridges run from 20mm to 25mm, their lens depths from 34mm to 46mm, and between them they take five different shapes. So 50mm on its own tells you almost nothing. Fix the width first, then choose the bridge and the depth. The next chapters are about those two.

Sixty-four of the 72 are acetate, six are metal, and two are acetate and metal together. Every one carries a Made in Italy tag on its listing, and the brand's own site says the same thing in capitals on every page: handmade in Italy.

Acetate is the default here and it behaves the way acetate does. Our listings put it plainly. The plate is cut, milled and polished, so the colour is in the material rather than painted onto it, and because it is cut rather than moulded the pattern runs right through the thickness of the rim. That matters on the patterned colours, the havanas and tortoises and crystals, because no two plates are identical and the same colour is never exactly repeated. Acetate also has weight to it, and it holds an adjustment once an optician has set it, which is the property you want on a frame this size.

The six metal frames do a different job. Metal keeps the rim thin, so the frame takes up less of the face than its size suggests, and it holds a shape at a thickness acetate could not. The Maske P53 in Gold is 55-16-145, about 126mm across with a 47mm lens, $590 from $790, and its listing describes it as a faceted, angular rimless mask in gold metal. The Maske P71 in Silver Black is 53-19-145 with a 48mm lens, the deepest we hold, at $590 from $790. The Maske H40 in Gold is 52-19-140 with a 28mm lens, and at $740 from $990 it is the highest-priced frame in the stock. The other three are the P74 in Gunmetal, the H71 in Black Gold and the Z17 in Gold.

Two frames combine the materials. The Maske N14 in Artichoke is 50-25-145, about 125mm across with a 41mm lens, $440 from $590, and its listing calls it a frame of two materials, each used where it is better than the other. The second is the Maske Y7 in Frosted Crystal, a cat-eye sunglass at 48-26-145 with a 25mm lens, $590 from $790, whose listing says the join between the two materials is the detail worth looking at.

All 72 are new and sealed. The 52 eyeglasses arrive with demo lenses in them, the clear blanks that hold the shape until your own lenses go in, and the 20 sunglasses arrive with their tinted lenses as made.

Seven shapes are in stock, and in this brand the shape and the size are tied together more tightly than usual. Here is how each family actually measures.

Round is 15 frames and it is the narrow family: eye sizes from 39mm to 50mm, bridges from 23mm to 31mm, lens depths from 36mm to 47mm. A round KUBORAUM is a deep lens on a small width, which is the combination that suits a short face, and the wide bridges mean these settle low and sit still rather than perch. The Z17, Z30, S1, S2, L4 and the P1, J1, K10 and R4 families are all in here.

Square is the largest family at 18 frames and it sits in the middle of the range: 47mm to 55mm eye, 17mm to 25mm bridge, 35mm to 48mm lens. It is where most faces land. Geometric, which the listings describe as faceted and angular, is 14 frames at 46mm to 55mm eye, and it carries the narrowest bridges in the stock, 16mm to 23mm. Those narrow bridges under wide fronts are deliberate. They sit high on a nose that stands out from the face, where the sides of the nose can take the weight.

Oval is eight frames, 49mm to 54mm eye on 19mm to 24mm bridges, with lens depths of 34mm to 43mm. Cat-eye is seven, 48mm to 54mm eye; five of the seven are sunglasses, and the two optical ones are the Maske K35 in Havana at 50-22-145, about 122mm across with a 41mm lens, $590 from $790, and the Maske P5 in Light Blue at 49-21-145 with a 40mm lens, $515 from $690.

Rectangular is five frames and it is the shallow family: 49mm to 56mm eye, with lens depths of only 26mm to 35mm. Four of the five are sunglasses. Aviator is five and every one sits at a 53mm eye, and the listings describe all five as double-bridge. Four are the P8 in its four colours; the fifth is the Maske T11 in Off-White, 53-21-145, about 127mm across with a 26mm lens, $590 from $790.

The old rule still applies underneath all of this: a shape that contrasts with the outline of a face reads as deliberate, and a shape that repeats it disappears. But with these frames the width matters more than the shape does. Get the across-the-front figure right first, then choose the shape you want to be seen in.

The bridge is the number that decides whether a frame stays where you put it. Across our 72 it runs from 16mm to 31mm, with a median of 21mm. Grouped: 12 frames have bridges of 16 to 18mm, 28 sit at 19 to 21mm, 21 sit at 22 to 24mm, and 11 are 25mm or wider.

Two things about a nose decide which of those fits. The first is width, at the point where the frame rests. The second is height, meaning how far the nose stands out from the face. A nose that stands well out lets a frame sit high, where the nose is thin, so it takes a narrow bridge. A nose that is short or low lets the frame settle further down, where every nose is wider, so it takes a wide one, often wider than you would guess from the size of the face.

At the narrow end are the Maske K37 in Havana and the P53 in Gold, both 16-millimetre bridges on a 55mm eye, both about 126mm across, both with a 47mm lens. That is a large front held up by a small bridge, and it only works on a nose with height to it. The three Maske F4s at 52-17 and the four P8s at 53-17 are the same idea in a gentler form.

At the wide end is the Maske Z30 in Black Shine, 41-31-140: a 41mm round lens on a 31mm bridge, about 113mm across, with a 39mm lens depth, $590 from $790. A 31mm bridge is unusual anywhere. It is there because the lenses are small and have to be held apart to land in front of the eyes, and it makes this one of the few frames in the range that will sit properly on a low, flat nose.

Temples are simpler. Sixty-eight of the 72 are 145mm and four are 140mm: the H40, the H71 and the Z17 in metal, and the Z30 in acetate. Both lengths reach the ear on most adult heads. The difference is only how much of the arm curls behind it, and an optician sets that curl with gentle heat. Acetate and metal both take the adjustment. What does not work is trying to correct a wrong bridge with a temple adjustment. It will not hold.

We sell frames, not lenses. Nothing on this page comes with a prescription in it, and we do not fit prescription lenses online. What we can give you is the one measurement that decides whether a frame will take the lens you need: the lens height, top rim to bottom rim.

Our listings record a lens height for 71 of the 72. The Maske K21 in Black Matt, 47-21-145 at $475 from $690, is the one without a figure. Across the rest it runs from 25mm to 48mm, with a median of 40mm. That is a wide spread, and it is the number people overlook.

For a single-vision lens, depth is mostly a matter of taste. For a progressive it is a matter of room. A progressive puts distance at the top of the lens and reading at the bottom, and the change between them needs a set length of lens below the pupil. The pupil usually sits a little above the centre of the lens, so a 40mm lens leaves roughly 20mm to 22mm to work with, which suits almost every progressive design made.

Of the 52 eyeglasses, 28 have a lens height of 40mm or more, which leaves room for most progressive designs. Seventeen sit between 36mm and 39mm, which suits most, and is worth a word with whoever fits your lenses. Six are below 36mm: the two Maske P14s at 32mm, the two P6s at 34mm, the H71 at 35mm and the H40 at 28mm. Those want a short-corridor design or single vision, so ask before you order.

The deepest lenses in the stock are the Maske P13 in Light Grey, 55-18-145 at 48mm deep, about 128mm across, $590 from $790, and the P71 in Silver Black, also 48mm. The shallow frames cluster in the sunglasses. Of the eight frames at 31mm or less, seven are sunglasses, among them the Y7 at 25mm and the two Maske X6s at 26mm and 27mm.

Two last notes. The 52 eyeglasses come with demo lenses, so your optician has the exact shape to work from. And a strong prescription in a deep lens gets thick and heavy at the edges, which is worth raising with your optician before you settle on one of the seventeen frames at 45mm or deeper, rather than after.

Numbers get you to a shortlist. A face gets you to a frame. If you are near Arlington or Dumfries, bring the frame you wear now and we will measure it, measure you, and put two or three KUBORAUM on your nose. The visit page has the addresses and hours.

Buying online, work in this order. Take the across-the-front figure of a frame you already like and match it against the table on this page; ours run from about 105mm to about 132mm. Then pick the bridge for your nose, using the bridge chapter above. Then check the lens height against the lens you wear now. The frame size guide explains how to measure a frame you already own, if you do not have the numbers.

On price. All 72 are on sale. Twenty-six are $590 and sixteen are $515, with the rest spread between $365 and $740. The lowest are the two Maske B2s, Pink and Orange, oval sunglasses at 50-24-145 with a 43mm lens, $365 from $790. The highest is the Maske H40 in Gold at $740 from $990. The original prices on the page run from $590 to $990.

Every frame in this shop is a single piece, and when one sells it is gone. On a range this size that mostly bears on colour, because several models are here in more than one: three P1s, three R4s, three F4s, four P8s. The measurements are identical across the colours of each of those models, so the only real choice left is which colour.

Frames ship as frames, without lenses. Shipping within the US is free and insured, and the parcel is signed for. Your own optician fits the lenses; if you are local, the Eye Rx practice can fit them. These are sale frames, and a sale frame is a final sale: it cannot be returned or refunded. So check the measurements on this page against a frame you already wear before you order, and ask us anything first. Every KUBORAUM we hold is new and sealed. Questions before you order go through the contact page.