Glasses direct blog

If you want to be right on-trend with your specs, why not go for a stylish cat-eye pair? Create that perfect business look or that envious designer style with a great pair of specs! Check out Leona Lewis with her gorgeous glasses…

At Glasses Direct we have extended our designer collection and you can now get Leona’s celeb look with our Guess GU1547 specs, or our own brand Mai Tai and Cosmopolitan frames look fabulous too!

Check out our latest coverage, capturing a number of our hottest glasses from our amazing designer brand collections! Take a peek at our stunning Chloe sunnies in Look magazine and sunglasses from Giorgio Armani, Chloe and Jigsaw in The Independent and a combination of our top names on Sugarscape. All perfect for that envious beach or festival style…

Find a range of Chloe sunnies at Glasses Direct...

Designer sunnies perfect for the beach...

More of our designer sunnies on SugarScape...

Barbie is growing up, and has started taking her career more seriously. Digital files have replaced nail files for the blonde bombshell as she begins her new role as a Computer Engineer. Most importantly however, in her new role she sports a very striking pair of geek chic glasses in the obligatory Barbie Pink.

If you want to be a Computer Engineer in Barbie Land, get the look with Glasses Direct:

Glasses Direct price: £59 inc. single vision lenses + extra pair FREE
http://www.glassesdirect.co.uk/daiquiri-wings/

Glasses Direct price: £59 inc. single vision lenses + extra pair FREE
http://www.glassesdirect.co.uk/cuba-libre/

The sun is still shining out here at our Swindon office, so I’ll make no apologies for posting my second hot tip for sunglasses this season! You can never beat a good pair of aviator shades and our Cowboy specs look pretty sexy as sunglasses. These ones have a graduated brown sunglasses tint added to them and Adam from our IT team is kindly modelling them for us!

Ever since we first made buying spectacles over the web possible, we’ve been searching for innovative ways to let you ‘try before you buy’. Back in 2005 we launched the world’s first virtual mirror on our website. Today, we’ve created something just as revolutionary – our 10-day Home Trial.

This new service is now live and allows you to order up to four pairs of glasses to try on at home or work. Once ordered the glasses are delivered by post in a cool box that opens out into a pop-up stand, enabling you the opportunity to experience and try on glasses anyway, anyhow, anywhere you want. You send the glasses back to us in that same box, freepost, when you’re done.

Whenever I’m in a high street opticians store, I always want to make a shortlist of frames, and then take them home to show people and get their opinion. But you cant do that. I dont expect Dolland and Aitchison would be happy if we just walked out with a handful of frames! Equally, you might get strange looks if you took a suitcase of clothes into your high street optician and tried on 4 pairs of different glasses with different outfits. Now however, you can shop like a celebrity and have the glasses sent directly to you.

We want this service to provide you with a superior shopping experience to the high street.

It costs just £5 to have up to four pairs sent to you at home or work. When you find the glasses that are right for you, pop the box back in the post and we’ll make them up to your prescription. We’ll also reimburse the small fee once you’ve placed an order.

Why not show us your trial specs or your new glasses once you’ve ordered them? You can upload pics to our Flickr group My new glasses!

There are quite a few blogs which take fashions from the high-street, rather than the catwalk, spotting and snapping people seen out and about looking fabulous daahlink. The most famous of these is the Sartorialist. I think they’re wonderful.

Writing as someone who’s not the coolest lollipop in the freezer it’s nice to see fashion in a real world setting rather than the oddities of the emaciated fashion show twigs.

There’s a new one that I found today via Eye Heart Glasses, a very cool New Zealand blog run by Jo about Glasses.

In her latest post she draws together a few items of interest from around the web, and one of them was from Advanced Style which has the fantastic tag line:

PROOF FROM THE WIZENED AND SILVER-HAIRED SET THAT PERSONAL STYLE ADVANCES WITH AGE.

It’s chock full of the dapper and the chic, who eschew the twin-set and zimmer. Plenty of them with some pretty fantastic glasses.

[Photo by MISTER MORT]



[Photo by Advanced Style]



[Photo by Advanced Style]



[Photo by MISTER MORT]


I’m going to enjoy following this site.

The Opus Design Award is a Japanese based competition for people wishing to ‘Deliberate Today through the subject of eyewear’ if you please.

There’s some lovely ideas. Who knows how many we’ll see on sale at Glasses Direct in the future?

This years winner was ‘Switch’, a photochromic pair of glasses where the entire pair change in sunlight, not just the lenses.

Project here

The silver prize went to the thought provoking idea of glasses for blind people – so that the glasses actually indicate the blindness instead of/as well as the stick:

Project here




These are slightly scary. Clamping to your face.

Project here

However the best for my money are these, if only for the dodgy translation. They’re glasses designed to counter the problem of the lenses steaming up when eating hot food.

When you eating hot food,
the misty in glesses is the most besetment for people
who put on a pair of glesses.
But it is discourteous that somebody usually shave the glesses.
Easy to shave the glesses not only well-mannered but also elegance

Project here

Here’s one that went from crazy design in 2002, into production

2008 Awards

Let us know any you think are particularly good.

Note: the main awards site does have a few broken links on it, but it’s worth persevering.

I’ve seen some fancy glasses around recently. I’ve already blogged about the asymmetric specs. But what about these:

The glasses are transparent, and you fill them with the ink that you want.

Created by the portuguese designer Luis Porem

I don’t how many of you are watching the latest season of Heroes on TV at the moment, but I am an avid fan. A couple of others here at GD are also addicted to it and after a discussion one lunchtime about our favourite Heroes characters and their glasses, I thought I’d take a closer look at some of the heroes spec-tacular style.

My hero no 1: Hiro Nakamura

Emmy and Golden Globe Award-nominated Masi Oka stars as Hiro Nakamura, a Japanese nonconformist computer/anime geek. Hiro’s ability to pierce the space-time continuum and manipulate time has empowered him with foresight into a dangerous future — and what he must do to change it. I love Hiro’s simple glasses, perfectly understated for a man with such extraordinary abilities. I think our Lisbon frames are pretty similar.

The evil Sylar

Zachary Quinto stars as Sylar, a manipulative serial killer dedicated to violently collecting the extraordinary talents of special people. This retro-style of specs on Sylar almost makes him look like a nice guy, if you are watching Heroes, you’ll know otherwise!

HRG

Jack Coleman stars as the mysterious H.R.G. – so named after his “Horned Rimmed Glasses.” Just what I love the most, a man so connected to his glasses he’s named after them!

Claire Bennet

Sexy Hayden Panettiere stars as Claire Bennet, an indestructible high school cheerleader, who must veil her abilities from her peers as well as keep other secrets from her mysterious father “H.R.G.” Hayden’s character Claire doesn’t actually wear glasses in the series, but I thought she’d look great if she did. I used our Virtual Mirror to see how she’d scrub up in a pair of Charmers. What do you think?

Credit: Heroes is produced by NBC.

It’s that time of year when the nights are drawing in and there’s a chill in the air. Every year around this time I start thinking about buying my winter coat, a real wardrobe staple. I often choose something that is quite a statement piece, guaranteed to liven up whatever I am wearing.

It occurred to me when I was shopping for this years’ coat, that glasses are as much of a wardrobe staple as your coat might be. Day in day out you wear them to face the world; they are almost as much a part of you as your hair. So why not match your glasses to your outerwear this season?

There are some great trends out there at the moment, here are a few of my favourites matched with some fabulous glasses from our collection.

Heritage

Tweeds, tartan and checks were seen all over the Autumn-Winter 09 catwalks, making it to the high street just in time for you to get a slice of the heritage fashion action.

Harley glasses in grey

Smarten up the day look with a siren red coat and some chic glasses. These are one of our bestselling pairs, a real hit with our ladies. Oh and they’re also called Charmer, so maybe they’ll give you some added charming qualities to really breeze through the working day.

Charmer glasses in red

The rock chick look has legs as long as people are out there partying. Animal print was big on the catwalks, with leopard-print a sure winner. Why not team this trend with a contrasting pair of bold glasses from our Cocktail Collection? This season my hot tip is Cosmopolitan in red £20.

Cosmopolitan glasses in red

Embroidered cloth, intricate detail, jewels and paisley patterns all brought a brush-stroke of folk to the winter season. For a bit of the Russian Tsarina look, why not go for an embroidered coat matched with some sparkly detailed glasses.

Cuba Libre glasses in black