Sunny Syracuse: Collegiate Sun Sunglasses

By Natasha Schuyler

Last summer Alex Tschopp went to Cornell for a summer management course. The sun was shining and he forgot his sunglasses back home. He figured he could just walk in the university store and buy a pair. But, to his amazement, they didn’t sell any.

Tschopp, a student from the County College of Morris in New Jersey, is now working with his best friend, Anthony Scandariato, to rectify the problem Tschopp met at Cornell.

“Throughout the summer I thought about what happened when I went to the store and came up with the idea from there,” Tschopp said.

After completing his certificate program, Alex went back home to New Jersey and started collaborating with Scandariato on what they now call Collegiate Sun. After much discussion, the duo decided on Ray-Ban style sunglasses. “The Wayfarer style was kind of what was in fad as far as fashion, so that is where we chose the idea,” Tschopp said.

With plans to make this a national brand, Tschopp and Scandariato will launch the sunglasses next fall at Syracuse University and four other schools. The duo said each school was picked because it fit a different category: Syracuse has a prominent Greek life system, which is why Syracuse is one of the first schools to have access to the sunglasses. Two other schools, Harvard and NYU, fit the Ivy and city niche, respectively.

“We are both excited and nervous about how students will react to our product. We’re very confident that we have found an opening in a college apparel market and people will react positively,” Tschopp said.

Reflecting each school’s colors, SU’s sunglasses will be both blue and orange. This fall students can look for a pavilion set up on the quad during freshman orientation and football games to check out Collegiate Sun’s Syracuse line.

For now, the line will only be available through visits to Cornell or the campus bookstore, but eventually Tschopp and Scandariato plan to open an online store. These cool new sunglasses might set broke students back $15 to $20.

“Not the quality of Ray-Bans, but definitely not cheap,” Tschopp said.

Check out Collegiate Sun's Facebook page for sunglass designs and news updates.