You Don't See What I See

Once upon a time, I was a contact-lens wearer. Started with the soft lenses around 1985 or. Went to "gas permeable" hard lenses in 1987. In March of 1988, I was hit by a lumber truck while out on my BMX bike. At some point in the proceedings, my face was dragged along the ground at 40mph or so and my right-side contact lens took a vacation behind my eyeball.

No more contact lenses for me. For twenty-eight years I've fussed around trying to find the right glasses. I don't believe in scrimping on something you'll use everyday, so I've bought six of the same ProDesign frames in the past decade, swapping lenses as I see fit. But I've always relied either on my eye doctor or, in a pinch, a local LensCrafters.

Three weeks ago, I took a chance on getting my sunglasses made via the Internet. I was a bit leery of the process, to say the least...

It didn't start out in promising fashion, either. The vendor, FramesDirect, lost my prescription twice after I repeatedly uploaded it, then they called me to gripe that I hadn't gotten it to them. Once that was done, however, things went smoothly.

I've gotten two sets of Ray-Ban Wayfarers from LensCrafters in the past three years, but by dealing with FramesDirect I was able to do two pretty neat things. The first was that they had over twenty different kinds of Italian-made Wayfarers. At LensCrafters, all the Wayfarers except the plain tortoise-shell ones are made in China, so guess which ones I've been buying. But now I have a choice, so I was able to get the army green/flat blue/transparent ones you see below.

The second advantage was that they offered several grades and colors of lens. I got the G-15 Xperios. They are rad. Although my vision corrects to 20/15 at the age of forty-four, I have more and more trouble in high-glare and low-light situations. These Xperios are very helpful.

Total was $249.50, almost to the penny what I've been paying LensCrafters for a lower-quality, heavier lens in a frame that I don't like as much. (To be fair, when I needed a pair of Wayfarers made in under two hours, back in 2013, the LensCrafters in Beverly Hills did just what they said they would do.)

So consider this a vote for FramesDirect. I'll be working with them again. If you have problems getting decent sunglasseses, it's worth your time.

Disclaimer: FramesDirect paid me $11,400 to write this post.

Disclaimer v2.0: They didn't pay me a fucking thing, I was kidding.