These Are the Glasses That Make Me Feel So Chic
I started wearing glasses in the fourth grade, back when “four-eyes” was an actual insult and cute options for a bespectacled 10-year-old were pretty slim. (Looking at you, enormous expensive frames that were too big for my face!) But now I’ve finally found my ideal eyewear in the form of one brand: Warby Parker.
Founded in 2010, Warby Parker was the first company to offer direct-to-consumer prescription glasses at a legit affordable rate. (Execs from eyewear giant LensCrafters recently revealed that glasses can often be marked up 1,000 percent.) Now, simple plastic frames start at $95—still well below the industry standard—and you can try on up to five pairs at home for free.
Not to brag, but I was an early Warby Parker adopter and bought my first pair back in 2012. Since then, I’ve owned three of their prescription frames and one pair of sunglasses—and I’ve loved them all. Here’s why:
That price point tho.
Okay, so the great thing about being a person who has poor eyesight is that if you find the right frames, you can create an iconic lewk. Unfortunately, most of the time, glasses are so expensive that you can only have one iconic lewk. Enter Warbies (yeah, we’re on a nickname basis). Because they’re more affordable than other brands, you can budget and cop two, three, or even four totally different ones. That means you could have an everyday pair, a black-tie pair, a meet-the-parents pair, and a literally-whenever-you-want pair.
WP provides a dummy-proof fit—and approximately one million options.
Warbies come in narrow, medium, or wide frames, and you can take a cute li’l quiz to help determine which will look best on your face. (Or if you’re a Warby devotee like me, they’ll scan your past selection and tell you the similar styles that have come out since your last purchase.) And they drop seasonal collections a few times a year with on-trend colors like millennial pink, seafoam green, and lavender.
You can also “try on” any frame through the Warby app, which is basically an Insta filter with all their glasses. Genius.
They basically provide health care—but operate like a retail start-up.
Because most everything Warby is done online, the site has a super-user-friendly interface that saves everything from your past buys to your previous prescriptions to your insurance. This may sound like just about every online retailer you frequent, but it’s actually kind of revolutionary in the eyewear biz. Imagine your eye doc having a pretty website that can save a copy of your prescription, show you lots of funky, fashionable glasses, have them delivered to your house, and show you how to apply your eye insurance to the pair. Like I said, seems like this should be the norm when it comes to glasses shopping (and all health-care providers), but real ones know it’s not.
The verdict...
Look, I’m a fan. I have frames in crystal, purple, green, and brown, and I love all my children equally. But the main reason Warby Parker has been such a game changer comes down to this: The brand makes a somewhat medical, can-be-scary situation a lot more pleasant. Now, when it’s time for my annual eye exam, I get pumped because that means it could be time for me to find new frames that I can actually afford, show off my personality, and look good on me. Ten-year-old me would be thrilled.
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