Lunettes

I got a new pair of glasses last week. Because I wear contact lenses most of the time, I don't buy glasses very often. After almost four years, my current pair of distance glasses, owing to being yanked on and off my face to allow for far-and near-vision, were loose, chipped, and worn out. I'm near-sighted. With my contacts, I need to use regular 1.50 or 1.75 magnification reading glasses. Without the contacts, I can still see all right up close but because I have astigmatism it's tiring, and usually I use prescription reading glasses - so I'm constantly changing the frames during the day when I don't have my lenses in. I won't spring for progressives, and for most of my close work prefer to use full-lens glasses anyway so I can see straight-ahead at the computer or piano.

Anyway, that's a long and boring prelude to the main story: that I went to the optician and looked for a new pair of frames. The ad had said "First pair $69/two pairs for $99;" I figured it had to be a good deal, and I'd maybe get two pairs, one more conservative, one more, well, hip. Urban. Trendy.

When I walked into the store I couldn't believe how many frames there were - literally hundreds and hundreds. I had no idea where to start, so I turned to the first salesperson and said, "Help!" He was a nice guy and knew the stock very well; in short order I was seated at a table with three pairs in front of me, winnowed down from ten or so that he'd suggested according to the general guidelines I offered him. There was one semi-rimless pair with just a thin brownish-coppery frame on the tops of the lenses; a pair of red metallic frames with a double wire forming the side-pieces; and a heavy pair with wide side-pieces, very au courant. I liked them all; they all looked good. OK, I said, figuring I'd choose the first pair and one of the others. How much are we talking about?

Well, he said, you're going to want the ultra-thin lenses, and anti-glare, anti-scratch coatings...so it comes to...let' see... $297 for the two pairs.

My eyebrows went up. Really! I said. OK, how much for one pair?

$168 with the tax.

My contacts already cost me that much. So what did I do? I chose the semi-rimless pair, figuring they'd have to last me another three or four years. When I picked them up I thought to myself, yeah, they look good, they're current, and they make a slight fashion statement but they sure don't give me a "look," other than a sort of hip-bookish one. I won't get tired of them, but do I actively like them? No, I feel the same way about them I've always felt about glasses. Lukewarm.

I can see really well though. But I'm kind of annoyed with myself, and that stubborn rural, Yankee practicality that keeps me from choosing expensive items just for the sake  of...fun. Or fashion. Or just frivolity.

So I guess I'll be gravitating toward my contacts, and those $20 bright red plastic reading glasses I love.

Comments

[Tori]

Hip-bookish is underrated.

[Martine]

297$ for two pairs! You'll have to let me know where that was. By the time they get mine thinned down, anti-glared and everything, they usually charge me at least 450$ for one pair, and that's with inexpensive frames.

So at that price, I always end up picking the more conservative model, knowing I'll have to live with them for quite a few years. And then I look at people with very cool glasses and regret my choice. ;-)

[Jean]

Like most things, hugely less expensive than here in the UK! With custom-made lenses for astigmatism, thinned so they don't look like bottle-bottoms, and any kind of decent frames, a new pair of glasses for me costs at least 5 or 6 hundred pounds (c 1000 Canadian dollars). Which is why I've had the same pair for several years and they're now getting very bent and battered.

[pat thistlethwaite]

Do so agree with Jean's comment above. You nearly need a mortgage to get new glasses here in the UK. Theres frames, lenses, vari-focals, reactolite, all the add-ons. If they are under £400 you think you are jolly lucky. Yes they do have to last but we do have to look after our eyes, don't we?

[Jaelin]

Unfortunately, I have to say, though nonetheless stylish, the frames you chose are very Sarah Palinesque!

[Vivian]

It never OCCURRED to me that "lunettes" means, like, little moon-slices. Cute.

[Rana]

Heh. I'm always paying through the nose for my glasses, for the insurance won't cover them, and I've learned that I can't live with unattractive ones (since I'll be seeing them everyday, all day, for several years).

Trying on new ones is an entertaining exercise, as my vision is quite poor without them (I've determined that my zone of clear focus only extends from 4 inches from my eyes to about 7 or 8 inches). I don't wear contacts, so I can't see how I look in them, beyond peering weakly at them from up close or getting a fuzzy sense of their general shape and color from a distance. Usually I take D. with me - he has good taste and an eye (hee) for what looks flattering on me.

I'm not looking forward to the day when my eyes start heading towards bi-focal land - with my luck, I won't be able to see ANYTHING clearly without lenses.

[beth]

Thanks, Tori. I feel better now!

That was at Optique Laurier, Martine. Costco also has good deals, and the best prices I've seen on contact lenses, but much less selection for frames. I also got a cheap pair once at a Wal-Mart vision center in the U.S., but I've heard that prices tend to be better on glasses in Canada.

I'm shocked by the British prices! Yikes. Come on over!

Jaelin - I know it looks that way but if you saw the whole frame, they're very different. Kind of a wide, rounded rectangle, and narrow top to bottom. Hers are a lot trendier.

Vivian - that never occured to me either. Wow.

Rana - my sympathies!!

[Dick]

As Pat says of the UK, looking after the eyes requires parting with an arm and a leg, price-wise. I guess in your case, Beth, the astigmatism is a determining issue in terms of needing specialist provision. But for straightforward long-sightedness, I've managed to cater for my needs on eBay. I now own a modest but exclusive collection of vintage specs, purchased for peanuts. The pair I wear for daily use (as in not bumping into the furniture or the car in front) are Dickensian - oval lenses and straight wire sides with looped ends, probably from the late 19th century. They cost me £5.00 + £2.50 postage. Then for reading I have a pair of 8 carat gold, horn-rimmed hexagonal glasses. It's all a bit hit-or-miss and I have a shoebox full of interesting odds and sods that I can't wear. But I now have lots of grateful myopic and hyperopic friends!

[Jean]

Yes, Dick, it's the need for custom-made lenses that's the killer! On the other hand, I'm very grateful that the kind of eye problem both Beth and I have no longer requires correction by lenses half an inch thick on one side.