Quite a Site for Four Eyes!

Julie Ghatan

Having trouble finding the perfect pince-nez, monocles or lorgnettes? Do you daydream about baby blue Buddy Holly glasses? Wish your cat eye frames were less catty? The people at Opera Opera understand your frustration and have been indulging such desires since 1978.

The London-based company will reproduce any vintage frame — or any frame for that matter — in any color or size. The frames you send for copying are closely matched for color and you can even choose the coating—shiny or matte. Whether you’re into to vintage or not, one thing is for sure: spectacle wearers want unique frames. Ours is a generation of personalization; we customize everything from our ringtones to our coffee (McDonald’s new coffee campaign really is “customize your coffeeâ€?), so why should we settle for non-custom glasses? After all, they’re a better representation of our personalities than a 30-second polyphonic ringtone can ever hope to be. At Opera Opera, each piece is handcrafted and unique. Though the frames in their standard stock are based on designs of the 1930s though 1980s, the store also makes avant-garde surrealist frames upon request. Nothing is out of the question with these frame makers.

The store’s website, www.operaopera.net, has several photo galleries to help you decide on a style or shape—cat eye, round, and Johnny Depp are just a few of the categories from which one can choose. The site even conducts a brief lesson on the evolution of the small, round metal frames popularized by musician John Lennon. Though the galleries offers what appears to be a wide variety of sample photos, they really are just a glint of what these amazing frame makers are capable of doing.

If Covent Garden isn’t just around the corner from your apartment, you can email the shop a photo of the glasses you fancy to get a quote for a set of frames. Of course, the opticians at Opera Opera don’t recommend buying a pair of frames based on photos due to sizing issues, but if you pay for shipping, they’re willing to mail glasses back and forth until they size is right. Prices for frames start at GBP £140 (about $275) and sunglasses start at £165 (about $320), so who can resist? With frames this cool, poet Dorothy Parker will realize she was quite wrong when she wrote “Men seldom make passes / At girls who wear glasses.â€?