I was 21 when I got my first pair of glasses.
It was those really slim letterbox styles that everyone used to wear, and I got them in brown to match my hair.
Granted, that might not seem like a huge milestone in someone’s life, but for me it was.
Growing up, I’d never needed glasses. In fact, I’d known very few people who wore them. And the handful of people I did, always appeared to be self-conscious about it.
From the outside looking in, it certainly seemed to me that – if you wore specs – you were typically singled out in some way or made to feel different.
So when I got a job working in a local optical practice in 2006 and was given an eye test as part of the onboarding process, it came as a surprise to be issued with a prescription.
I was told that wearing glasses would help with concentrated work like computer use, but I’ll be honest, the news made me feel anxious. This is because I’d already tried on all the frames in the shop and couldn’t see any that suited my face.
Looking back, I suppose that reaction was partly down to what I’d witnessed as a child but I also suspect that – as I’d never seen any of the celebrities, style or music idols I liked wearing glasses – in my mind it was wholly ‘unfashionable’ and even ‘uncool’ to wear them.
Despite working in the industry, I just couldn’t quite shake the idea that wearing glasses made me less stylish or desirable. So I wore them at work but never on a night out or in public.
Gradually that lessened, until I actually stopped wearing glasses altogether. I seemed to manage alright without them, but suffered eyestrain and occasional headaches at the end of the day. And no, the irony of dispensing glasses to others and not actually wearing them myself was not lost on me.
I also noticed that, across almost all of the optical practices I worked with, it was rare to speak about what was actually most important to the majority of wearers: how they look in glasses.
Many of my clients had expressed that their worst fear was making the wrong choice (easily done when you can’t actually see what you’re looking at), and having others comment negatively on their glasses.
It’s something that resonated with me too and so I started to question where these insecurities and beliefs about wearing glasses came from.
Historically, glasses were associated with intellectualism and introversion, not glamour or desirability. This image – perpetuated by popular culture – painted glasses-wearers as bookish, socially awkward, or even physically unattractive.
Iconic characters from movies and television, often depicted as the ‘geek’ or the ‘intellectual’, solidified this narrative – think Laney Boggs in She’s All That or Velma in Scooby Doo. As did the lack of representation on the cover of fashion magazines.
And considering that glasses are worn by over 60% of the population it’s unsurprising that their exclusion from mainstream media is going to continue to have a profound effect on self-image.
To try and combat this, I began thinking about and speaking about how to change the conversation around eyewear so that people, myself included, would actually want to wear them.
But I knew I had to start with myself. I had never found glasses that looked great on me, or on anyone else, if I was looking at racks of frames that all looked the same.
So, finding great glasses for me started when I began exploring eyewear beyond the confines of high street optical practices. When travelling to eyewear shows, particularly those in Europe, I was exposed to the sheer variety of shapes, styles and colours that you just didn’t see on the high street.
One of my first favourites was a cat eye style by a Spanish designer, I still wear it now. Closely followed by a pair of Italian bespoke-made copper and green wood frames that became my early signature look.
Within four years of starting in the optical industry, I qualified as a Dispensing Optician in 2010, aged 25. It’s an expert in supply of frames and prescription lenses.
But by 2012, I’d started to use the term Eyewear Stylist because it sounds far less clinical and much more desirable for those who want to understand what actually looks good on them. I’m an expert in the technical bit, but I just talk about the thing that matters most to the client.
Ever since then, I have trained hundreds of other opticians on how to bring style into the eyewear conversation. Then in 2018, I started Eyestyle Studio; a space which focuses only on the eyewear and how people want to feel and look when wearing them.
My clients mostly fit into two groups; those who already know their own sense of style and have the confidence to experiment, and those who wear or are new to wearing glasses and have no idea what actually suits them.
The process of finding the right pair of glasses is different for each person and requires a deep understanding of who they are and how they want to be perceived.
However, the result is the same – an eyewear wardrobe that truly represents them, is unique, contains glasses they actually love wearing and lasts for many years.
Many people who have had long-standing lack of confidence issues wearing glasses now wear them all the time and have stopped wearing contact lenses.
They’ve gone from hiding them and taking them off to answering the door and being approached in the street with compliments. Their glasses have become part of them and an interesting talking-point rather than something to hide behind. And that’s true for me as well.
Helping others find their confidence in glasses, helped me to find mine.
Today my glasses are the foundation of my outfit, a tool for seeing and being seen, how I project my mood and a conversation starter.
In fact, they’re so much part of me that I often go unrecognised by my own clients when they see me without glasses.
Despite now being confident with my eyewear, at almost 40 I’m starting to see the signs of needing additional prescription for reading. It’s a clear sign of getting older and yet I still haven’t booked my eye exam.
I think that just shows that we still have a way to go as a society to make glasses feel – not just normal – but desirable.
While the fashion landscape is gradually shifting – the conversation around inclusivity and representation has been gaining momentum, and there is a growing recognition of the need to embrace diverse forms of beauty – there needs to be a concerted effort to dismantle the lingering stigma about glasses.
Instead we should be celebrating the elegance and sophistication that glasses can bring to an outfit and to our face.
Yes, glasses are fundamentally corrective devices, but they are not something to fear. You just need someone to find them and understand how to style them on your face. Not just for fashion, but for real life.
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