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 that they are “like cubic rooms where we shelter ourselves”.

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.

The range here runs across eyeglasses and sunglasses. Most of it is acetate; a few frames are metal, and a few combine acetate and metal. Every one is new and unworn, and every one is on sale; the table below gives each frame's price beside its measurements.

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 brand does not say what the letter stands for, so it is safest to read the letter and the number together as the model's name.

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. Among the K models the K4 is 51mm, 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; in our stock the one exception is the Maske X6, whose colours differ by a millimetre of lens height. The P1s here, in Black Matt, Black Shine and Sea, are all 47-25-145 with a 45mm lens. The Maske R4s, in Black Matt, Lilac Grey and Havana, are all 47-23-145 with a 47mm lens. So once a model number fits you, every colour of it fits you, and you can choose on colour alone.

Some models cross the line between optical and sun. The Maske P8 is 53-17-145 with a 40mm lens, in Blue and Yellow Havana as eyeglasses and in White and Magenta as sunglasses, and the listings describe it as a double-bridge aviator. If you want the same frame twice, once clear and once tinted, the P8 lets you do it, and the P2 and P21 each run across both as well.

The table below lists every one 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.

Eye sizes run from 39mm to 56mm, and most sit between 47mm and 52mm. 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 smallest eye in stock is 39mm, on the Maske Z17 (39-27-140), and the narrowest front is about 105mm across. Narrow fronts are the hard ones to find, which is why these matter.

At the wide end, the largest eye in stock is 56mm, on the Maske X20 (56-20-145), and the widest front is about 132mm across.

The most useful thing in these numbers is what happens at a single eye size. The frames at 50mm alone have bridges from 20mm to 25mm, lens depths from 34mm to 46mm, and several 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.

Most KUBORAUM frames here are acetate; a few are metal, and a few combine acetate and metal. Every one carries a Made in Italy tag on its listing, and the brand's own site says the same thing in capitals: handmade in Italy.

Acetate is the default here and it behaves the way acetate does. The colour is in the material rather than painted onto it, the material has some 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 metal frames do a different job, and some of them do without a rim altogether. The Maske P53 in Gold is 55-16-145, about 126mm across with a 47mm lens, and its listing describes it as a faceted, angular rimless mask in gold metal: the lenses are drilled and held at the bridge and the hinges, so there is no rim around them. The Maske H40 in Gold, 52-19-140 with a 28mm lens, is rimless too. The Maske P71 in Silver Black is 53-19-145 with a 48mm lens. The Z17 in Gold is metal as well.

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

Every one is new and unworn. The eyeglasses arrive with demo lenses in them, the clear blanks that hold the shape until your own lenses go in, and the sunglasses arrive with their tinted lenses as made.

In this brand the shape and the size are tied together more tightly than usual. Here is how each family measures across what is in stock.

Round 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 sits in the middle of the range: 49mm to 55mm eye, 17mm to 25mm bridge, 37mm to 48mm lens. It is where most faces land. Geometric, which the listings describe as faceted and angular, runs from 46mm to 55mm eye on bridges of 16mm to 23mm, narrower than the round family’s. Those closer 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 runs from 49mm to 54mm eye on 19mm to 24mm bridges, with lens depths of 34mm to 43mm. Cat-eye runs from 48mm to 54mm eye and is mostly sunglasses; the optical ones are the Maske K35 in Havana at 50-22-145, about 122mm across with a 41mm lens, and the Maske P5 in Light Blue at 49-21-145 with a 40mm lens.

Rectangular is the shallow family: 49mm to 56mm eye, with lens depths of only 26mm to 35mm, and most of it is sunglasses. Every aviator sits at a 53mm eye, and the listings describe them all as double-bridge: the P8 in its colours, and the Maske T11 in Off-White, 53-21-145, about 127mm across with a 26mm lens.

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. Here it runs from 16mm to 31mm, and most frames sit between 19mm and 24mm.

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 Maske F4s at 52-17 and the 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. 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. Almost every frame here has a 145mm temple; the H40 and the Z17 in metal, and the Z30 in acetate, have 140mm. 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 the lens height, and it is in the table above. It runs from 25mm to 48mm, which 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.

Among the eyeglasses, a lens height of 40mm or more leaves room for most progressive designs. From 36mm to 39mm suits most, and is worth a word with whoever fits your lenses. Below 36mm, a frame wants a short-corridor design or single vision, so ask before you order; the table gives each frame’s lens height.

The deepest lens in stock is 48mm, on the Maske P13 (55-18-145) and Maske P71 (53-19-145). The shallow frames cluster in the sunglasses: at 31mm or less nearly all are sunglasses, among them the Y7 at 25mm and the Maske X6 at 26mm and 27mm.

Two last notes. The 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 a frame at 45mm or deeper, rather than after.

Numbers get you to a shortlist. A face gets you to a frame. The frame you wear now is the best measuring tool you have, so start from its numbers.

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. Every KUBORAUM here is on sale, and the table above gives each frame's price beside its measurements.

Every KUBORAUM here 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: the P1, the R4, the F4 and the P8 among them. The measurements are identical across the colours of each of those models, so the only real choice left is which colour.

The eyeglasses ship as frames, without prescription lenses, and the sunglasses with their own tinted lenses. Shipping within the US is free and insured, and the parcel is signed for. Your own optician fits the lenses. 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 unworn. Questions before you order go through the contact page.