How to find these glasses?

January 12, 2010 9:05 PM

Help me find these prescription glasses frames. More pictures inside.

My niece wants to purchase these frames, more pictures of the girl wearing the glasses here. I think she wants them enough to buy them online but if they're expensive, I'd feel more comfortable if we could find a place in Chicago where she could try them on first. I don't know how much glasses are, but could we find them for under $100? Help me, mefi shoppers. I don't know how to track down frames.

posted by anthropomorphic to clothing, beauty, & fashion (12 answers total)

That style is very popular right now. I recently got a pair of glasses and the little old lady that works the desk at my eye doctor's office in a strip mall showed me a pair of frames exactly like those and said they are all the rage among the young girls. I'm sure if you went to almost any store that sells glasses frames, you will find them.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 9:08 PM on January 12, 2010

Paging Juliet Banana. She has some information on her Flickr pages about fashion and glasses.
posted by odinsdream at 9:19 PM on January 12, 2010

Did you see this recent AskMe?
posted by Orinda at 9:25 PM on January 12, 2010

If I recall from poring over her fashion pictures, Julietbanana's glasses are Ray Ban frames with prescription clear lenses, and they are very similar to the sample pictures above.

I was recently at the optometrist and they had Ray Ban demo frames with clear lenses on the racks along with the traditional tinted lenses. It's a hot style, which I unfortunately can't wear myself because my prescription doesn't work with bigger lenses (so I got some with nonprescription UV-protection lenses at a knockoff kiosk, to wear on foggy days).
posted by padraigin at 9:26 PM on January 12, 2010

I am pretty sure you will find an acceptable pair on Zenni Optical. Like these or these. All you need to order is her prescription, with the pupillary distance.
posted by liketitanic at 9:27 PM on January 12, 2010

Those frames are usually called "Wayfarer style," "Buddy Holly style," "Clark Kent style," or "nerd glasses style" if that helps.

Everyone makes them right now, from Brooks Brothers to Hart to Modern Optical to XOXO. You won't have any trouble finding them at a variety of price points.
posted by Sidhedevil at 9:30 PM on January 12, 2010

Cheap! Online!

Be sure to have the pupillary distance, though.
posted by Sidhedevil at 9:34 PM on January 12, 2010

These vintage frames, which I found by browsing the "unique" category at eyeglasses.com, look pretty similar to the ones in your picture, although not quite as thick at the temples and across the bridge of the nose.

Wait . . . aha . . . these frames look like an even better match. Logically enough, I found them in the "big" category.
posted by Orinda at 9:34 PM on January 12, 2010 [2 favorites]

These look very much like the men's Persol frames that I wear. The photos are a little grainy, but the inlaid silver arrow that wraps around the temple is a tip-off—it's Persol's signature.
posted by ecmendenhall at 9:43 PM on January 12, 2010

I did a search on Etsy for "new old stock eyeglasses" and came up with this fellow's store. It looks like this pair or this pair might be close to what your niece wants. The frames plus shipping would cost $37.50 USD--pretty reasonable, considering he's shipping from Rome. Your niece could then take the frames to a local optometrist and get prescription lenses put in.

(When I was about ten years old, I had glasses very similar to the ones in the picture you linked to. The effect was much the same: big-ass glasses on a little tiny face. Little did I know that it would be the in thing, 25 years later....)
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:06 PM on January 12, 2010

Ok, so I was picking my cat up from the vet today and I saw one of the assistants in the back wearing the exact pair in the picture. Even the little silver bits on the side were exactly the same. I didn't get a chance to ask him where he got them (he walked up to the front and immediately went to the back) but I'm almost positive now that you could easily find them in any eye glasses store. The key to the frames is that they're thin, not thick like in a lot of the pictures people have linked to.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 2:30 PM on January 13, 2010

Aw, I got paged and the thread wasn't about how hipsters suck! Yay!

Yes, likely those glasses are either Ray Ban wayfarers, or similar knockoffs made in the style of wayfs.

You can call around to optometrists and ask if they carry Ray Ban wayfarers. This is not going to be under $100. Rather, it will be many times this amount. This is why you don't buy glasses at optometrists.

Or, get her eyes checked out, demand a prescription that includes spherical/axis/cylinder and pupillary distance measurements (more info), and then you can shop online. Measure her current glasses to make sure they'll fit alright. I honestly think how cheap buying glasses online is outweighs the possibility they don't fit.

Then, order these, which are the best Wayfarer knockoffs I've found online. $30, including lenses. Use the 10% off coupon code "glassyeye" (sans quotes).
posted by Juliet Banana at 6:46 PM on January 13, 2010 [1 favorite]