Eyewear

Eyewear is the newest thing on the accessories floor and the one we were most reluctant about, because the trade is dominated by two companies who make the frames, own the shops, and own the insurance. Buying outside that is possible but narrow: there are perhaps a dozen independent acetate workshops left in Europe and we buy from one of them, in the Jura, which has been cutting frames since 1946.

Acetate is cotton-based and cut from sheet, not moulded, which is why a frame from this workshop can be heated and adjusted to your face for as long as you own it, and a moulded frame cannot. We do that adjustment in the shop, for nothing, whenever you want it.

What we stock

Six frame shapes

Three of them in two sizes. That is the whole range and it is not going to grow — twelve options is a choice and forty is a shop floor nobody can navigate.

Optical and sun

Every shape is available either way. The sun lenses are glass, not polycarbonate, which is heavier and better and about a third of people prefer the lighter one anyway.

Prescription glazing

Done in Athens by an optician on Ippokratous. About ten days, single vision or progressive, and we do not mark it up.

Adjustment, forever

Heated and re-fitted whenever you want, for nothing. Bring in a frame from anywhere else and we will do that too if the material allows it, and tell you if it does not.

Repairs

Hinges and arms from the workshop’s own stock. A frame from them is repairable for about fifteen years, which is roughly fourteen longer than the trade expects.

What we will not do

Eye tests. We are not opticians and this is a shop that sells clothes. Bring a prescription, or the optician on Ippokratous will do it and we will collect the frame.

Choosing a frame

Bring your current pair. Whatever is wrong with it — sits low, marks the nose, arms too long — is more useful information than anything we can measure, and it is usually one of four things. Andriana photographs you in each frame you try and sends the pictures, because nobody has ever chosen glasses well in a mirror at arm’s length without their own glasses on.