There is absolutely no shortage of expensive fishing sunglasses. That makes showing up as a brand-new eyewear company and asking anglers for $179 a pair a pretty bold move.
Marble did exactly that.
The young fishing brand currently has just three frames: the Chasm, Bend, and Undercut. Instead of trying to build a massive catalog right out of the gate, Marble paired those frames with a relatively small collection of polarized ZEISS lenses designed specifically around fishing.
Over the last several months, we’ve tested all three frames with various lens combinations. They’ve gone to Alaska, Panama, and across rivers and lakes here in Montana. They’ve dealt with gray days, bright sun, big water, moving water, boats, travel, humidity, and the general abuse sunglasses receive when they’re actually being used.
So far, we really don’t have much to complain about. That’s a little inconvenient when you’re trying to write a review, but it’s considerably better when you’re the one wearing the sunglasses.
Looking for your next pair of shades? Check out our buyer’s guide to the best of the year.
Marble Sunglasses Lineup Review
Specs
- Price: $179
- Frames: Chasm, Bend, Undercut
- Lens: Polarized ZEISS sustainable polyamide
- Lens material: 39% bio-based
- Curvature: Base 8 full wrap
- Weight: 1 oz.
- Impact rating: ANSI Z87.1
- Frame materials: 58% bio-based Grilamid TR90 on Chasm and Bend; Undercut made from nylon sourced from 99% recycled fishing nets
Pros
- Excellent optical clarity
- Strong polarization and glare reduction
- Extremely lightweight
- Three genuinely different frame fits
- Good coverage without feeling bulky
- Lens options for both bright and lower-light conditions
- $179 price undercuts many premium fishing sunglasses
Cons
- Only three frame styles
- Lens availability varies by frame
- Very little independent long-term testing exists yet
- We’d like to see more options as the brand grows
Who and What Is Marble?
Marble is new enough that plenty of anglers are probably wondering who the hell Marble is. The company is an independent fishing eyewear brand with a heavy focus on fly fishing, lower-impact materials, and reducing waste within the sport. It has also built a fly-line recycling program through participating shops and outfitters and uses a network of guides, shop employees, and anglers to field-test its eyewear.
I’m generally pretty immune to sustainability language at this point. Outdoor companies have figured out that putting a green leaf next to a product description makes everyone feel warm and fuzzy, whether the product is actually doing anything differently or not.
Marble does have some legitimate material choices behind the messaging. The Chasm and Bend use frames made with 58% bio-based Grilamid TR90, while the Undercut frame uses nylon derived from 99% recycled fishing nets. Its ZEISS polyamide lenses are also 39% bio-based.
Cool. I still wouldn’t recommend crappy sunglasses just because somebody recycled a fishing net to make them. Fortunately, that isn’t the problem here. So far, we’ve been pretty impressed.
The Marble Lineup
Three frames don’t sound like much until you actually put all three on. Marble didn’t make the same sunglasses three times with slightly different corners. Each fills a different spot in the lineup.
Marble Chasm
The Chasm is Marble’s original frame and probably the safest place to start if you’re looking for the most straightforward option. So far, they’re my favorite.
It’s a medium-fitting, full-wrap frame made from 58% bio-based Grilamid TR90. At the moment, it’s also the simplest of Marble’s frames when it comes to lens choices, with Morning Rise and Trout Belly Flash aimed heavily at inland fishing and changing or lower-light conditions.
The Chasm feels more like an everyday pair of sunglasses than the more technical Bend, but there’s still plenty of wrap and coverage for fishing. It’s light, stays put, and doesn’t have the giant goggle effect that some high-coverage fishing sunglasses can give you.
For someone who wants one pair that doesn’t look out of place once they’re off the river, this is probably where I’d look first.
Marble Bend
The Bend is the most technical-looking and technical-feeling frame Marble makes. It’s slightly larger, with a 63-17-127 fit, and gets textured contact points at the nose and temples along with ventilation above the lenses. That venting is there to move air through the frame and reduce fogging, which becomes considerably more relevant when you’re fishing in heat and humidity or moving hard along a river.
The Bend also gets a broader range of lens options, including colors intended for hard sun and open water.
If the Chasm is the everyday fishing option, the Bend feels more like the pair built specifically to spend all day on the water.
Marble Undercut
The Undercut is the most appealing frame of the three to me, partly because fishing sunglasses don’t always play nicely with smaller faces.
It’s designed around small to medium face shapes and uses the recycled fishing-net nylon rather than the bio-based TR90 found in the other two frames. That material gives the Undercut a slightly different, more flexible feel, while the slimmer shape sits closer to the face without swallowing it.
You still get the full-wrap coverage you’d expect from technical fishing eyewear. You just don’t have to look like you stole sunglasses from somebody with a head twice your size. If this sounds like a deeply personal experience that doesn’t resonate with you, why don’t you just worry about yourself and your normal-sized head?
ZEISS Lenses Across the Line
The frames are the obvious difference between the three models, but the lenses are the reason I’ve become interested in Marble. All three use polarized polyamide lenses made with ZEISS lens technology.
They’re treated for water resistance, fogging, and reflections, and Marble uses different tints and mirror treatments to cover everything from lower-light river fishing to bright sun and open water.
More importantly, they’re really nice to look through.
There’s good contrast without making the world look radioactive, and the polarization cuts enough surface glare to actually matter when you’re trying to see into water. They’re also impressively light.
I’ve worn plenty of premium glass fishing lenses that are optically fantastic and noticeably heavy by hour eight. Marble’s polyamide lenses don’t give you that same slab-of-glass feeling sitting on your face.
Testing Marble Sunglasses
Between the three frames and various lens combinations, we’ve had Marble sunglasses in dramatically different fishing environments.
Alaska gave us variable conditions and long days outside. Montana has provided plenty of time on rivers and lakes in everything from cloudy mornings to hard summer sun. Panama was the opposite end of the spectrum, with intense tropical light, heat, humidity, and glare off open water.
That range has been useful because a great fishing lens in one environment can be irritating as hell in another.
The brighter Marble lens options have been much better suited to hard sun, while the lighter tints make considerably more sense when you’re dealing with clouds, shade, or changing conditions. That’s exactly what should happen, but I’ve worn enough supposedly purpose-built fishing lenses that I’m no longer willing to assume they’ll perform the way they’re supposed to.
These have.
We’ve also bounced the frames between testers instead of judging fit from one person’s head. The Chasm is the easiest all-around fit, the Bend provides more coverage and feels the most technical, and the Undercut gives smaller faces a legitimate option.
The frames are light enough that they’re easy to forget about, but they’ve stayed secure while fishing and moving around boats. We haven’t had issues with hinges, slipping, lens distortion, coatings, or durability so far.
What Works
The biggest win is that Marble didn’t spend all its effort building an interesting sustainability story and then slapping mediocre optics into the frames.
The lenses are legitimately good. Clarity, polarization, weight, and comfort have been consistently strong across every pair we’ve tested. That’s been true across three states and countries, multiple kinds of water, and a pretty wide range of light.
There’s also something refreshing about a lineup this small. You pick the frame that fits your face, choose the lens that makes sense for where you fish, and you’re basically done. There aren’t 27 nearly identical frames requiring an afternoon of internet research to determine which 2mm difference in temple length will change your life.
Customer feedback on Marble’s site is overwhelmingly positive and tends to hit the same points we’ve noticed, particularly low weight, clarity, glare reduction, and comfortable fit.
What Doesn’t
This is usually where I’d start beating something up. I don’t have much ammunition yet.
Three frames means Marble still has nowhere near the fit selection of the big eyewear companies. One of these three will either work with your face or it won’t. The lens selection is also inconsistent between frames, so liking one particular lens doesn’t necessarily mean it’s available in the frame you prefer. That’s just a typical new/small brand story.
The other issue isn’t really an issue at all. We’ve put these sunglasses through a lot of different conditions, but Marble is still a young brand, and these shades are still new to us. I can’t tell you how these frames will look after 5 years of abuse because they haven’t existed long enough for us to find out.
That’s less a knock against the sunglasses than a reality of reviewing a new company. Give us another couple of seasons, and I’ll happily try harder to break them.
Final Thoughts
New brands don’t get points simply for being new, and Marble entered one of the more crowded categories in fishing gear.
After testing all three of its frames from Alaska to Panama and across our home waters in Montana, however, the sunglasses themselves have made a pretty strong introduction.
The ZEISS lenses are clear, polarization is excellent, the frames are stupidly light, and Marble has managed to make three models that actually fit different people rather than looking like minor variations of the same pair.
At $179, they’re also sitting below plenty of premium fishing sunglasses while still feeling very much like premium eyewear.
For now, though, we’ve tested everything Marble makes. And we haven’t found the bad pair yet.
I lose a lot of sunglasses, but I’m officially hoping I don’t lose my Marbles.
