Glasses

Every two years I get some new glasses. In 2012 I tried the Warby Parker Home Try-On program. Of the 5 frames I tried, I rejected all of them and ended buying a pair from our local eyeglass place. In 2014 I stuck with the local place, but in 2016 I went full on Warby Parker and after trying two separate sets of 5 glasses each chose my current frames.

So here we go again. For 2018 I’m going to try Warby Parker again and my first 5 frame choices arrived yesterday. I choose 3 that are sort of the same shape as the current frames and two that are more round. And while the current blue frames have received rave reviews from practically everyone who notices them, all 5 of these are not blue (although the Hardy in Striped Pacific looks that way on the website.) We really just have a couple of greys, a couple of browns and a green.

Of the five, I kind of like the Seymour in Sage, but wish it was more green. My next choice would be the Lyle in English Oak, but I’m not sold on that color. Donna sort of likes Baker in Striped Sassafras, but I think they are too dark. So you know what this means, let’s mail ’em back and pick another five.

My evil plan to create my own Frankenstein Eyeglass Frames has failed. I’m probably correct in assuming that not every one of the Warby Parker frames can have their eyepieces and temple pieces swapped around, but none of the five I just got could could have.

In the end, it didn’t really matter because just holding the blue temples up to sides of the clear eyepieces, even if they were interchangeable, they didn’t look as good as I’d have liked. And one of the frames that I wanted just for the blue temple pieces turned out to be a winner.

Unlike what I’ve done in the past I did not subject my co-workers to an eyeglass fashion show asking for opinions this time. Only three people saw me with all five frame on my face, me, Donna and the woman who cuts our hair, and all three of us picked the same frame.

The one you see above – Wilder in Squall Blue Fade.

I can’t make up my mind on my next set of peepers.
When we last left our indecisive hero he was trying on five different pairs of glasses from Warby Parker…

While, I still really like the idea of the crystal frames, Donna thinks I need some color, so of the 5 tried on back then the Haskell with blue trim is the clear¹ front runner. When I look back at those pictures I still like the all clear Chamberlain best.

Then the other day I was watching a video review² of the new Miata by a French auto journalist and he had on clear frames with bright red temple arms. Whhaaaat?!? Me likey, but not red. Maybe blue? Coutless internet searches have garnered no results worth anything. This got me thinking, what if I could create my own by mixing two different frames. Off to Paint Shop Pro.

You can’t tell from the photos online if any of the frames would be compatible with swapping arms, so I dashed off an email to help@warbyparker.com: “Is there any other frame with blue color temple pieces would fit on the Haskell frame?” Their answer: “The only temple pieces we carry are silver and you can find them on our Winston frames here. We do not carry frames that come with blue temple pieces. Sorry about that!”

I’ll save you a link click, the Winston are black and look like the frames Steve Reeves wore as Clark Kent in the old Superman TV show. Ain’t no silver there.

Maybe I’ll do another Home Try On and order those 4 frames, plus a 5th wild card, and see if I can can get any of those blue arms to adapt to one of the crystal frames…

When shopping for new glasses 3-1/2 years ago I tried the Warby Parker Home Try On thing and end up buying a pair from the local eyeglass place. After my Ant Man inspired glasses failed to make the grade I went online and headed back over to WarbyParker.com to give it another go. In spite of the negative/lukewarm reactions out weighing the good, I was still jonesing some clear frames. For my five pair I picked 3 clear and a couple others that were more like my current glasses, i.e. tortoise shell flavored. So, below for your viewing pleasure is the line up I chose. The first photo is what I’m wearing now, the others are the frames I tried on, hover those images and you can see what they looked like on my face.

In 2016 I’m planning on getting new glasses and after watching the movie Ant Man I thought I had my new frames all picked out. The Clear Advocates looked awesome on Michael Douglas as the character Hank Pym. Well, those frames came in from OldFocals.com the other day and as it turns out I’m no Michael Douglas.

Donna never did like them from the get go, but I did still like them on my face. I thought they looked good. I admit that I think they look better when I see them on my face when I look in the mirror than I think they do in the photo above.

I took my perspective new glasses to work to get some opinions. My first stop was the company fashionista. At first she was not too thrilled, but after a few swaps back and forth between the Clear Advocates and my current frames she admitted they weren’t so bad. Next stop was my department which consists of all male engineers and the results were anywhere from what the heck to interesting to I like them. After that came the ladies in Accounting with similar mixed results.

After all that, the frames went back to California in the mail. They creaked every time you folded back the temple pieces. It was because of the construction. The metal nose bridge was held in slots in the Lucite lens pieces by screws. They just felt cheap and I usually wear the same pair for a couple years, I didn’t think these would have lasted that long.

The hunt continues…

When I had my eye exam, I had them order up three pairs of frames for me to look at from my usual EasyClip collection. I really like that the magnetic sunglasses are integrated into the total design. Well, I never heard from the vision place, so I started the Warby Parker frame shopping.

On Saturday my driver’s license renewal application came in the mail. Rather than take the DMV’s eye exam it is easier to get your eye care professional to fill out that side of the form, so we stopped in on the way home to get that done. While there I asked whatever happened to those frames I wanted to see. Turns out they had one of them, but were waiting on the other two before letting me know.

I tried on the one pair and didn’t really care for them, so we started trying on some of the other glasses with magnetic sunglasses that they had in the store. None of them floated my boat. Then we moved onto some of their sort of retro frames with not much more luck. At this point I was getting tired at staring at my own face (as I’m sure you are too) and was about to close my eyes and pick something at random, sort of a Pin The Glasses On The Man game, when Crystal who was patiently helping us out said, “I’ve just thing for you.”

She came out of the back of the store with three pairs of frames. The first one was OK, the second the same, but number three was the winner, the Eddie Bauer 8206 in Tortoise/Sapphire.

What about sunglasses you ask? Why Transitions of course.