Feel good: your sight is precious. Look after your eyes.
Wearing Glasses
Pat writes:
I started wearing glasses at age 10. It did not seem a bad thing at the time, as I appreciated my new-found ability to see things such as the blackboard at school. I considered myself lucky in that my father took me to the optician; he allowed me complete freedom to choose frames that I liked. I picked a black design, slightly upswept at the corners. My choice did not please my mother, who thought something in pale pink would have been more appropriate.
In the (several) intervening years I have read countless magazine articles on the importance of choosing spectacle frames to suit one’s face. The main thrust of the advice is to avoid a shape that echoes the shape of your face. All well and good, but this ignores the heavy influence of fashion on the manufacture of frames.
I have a square face and my ideal glasses shape would be oval, possibly upswept at the sides like my very first pair. Alas, the current fashion is for angular frames, with the only saving grace that they are generally more rectangular than square. When selecting my current pair the best I could find had slightly rounded corners.
I suggest a compromise: be aware of the shape of your face and try to find the most flattering within what is available. If possible, take a critical friend with you to help make a decision.
I might have had a wider choice if I had been willing to spend more money, but I only wear glasses some of the time. Mostly I rely on contact lenses.
If you wear glasses full time, buy the best quality you can afford; after all you wear them every day so it will be money well spent.
In my opinion, reading glasses are a different matter. In recent years I have had to use reading glasses for close work when wearing my contact lenses. It seems I am constantly taking them off and putting them on again and distorting the frames in the process. For example, in the kitchen I put them on to read the details of a complicated recipe then take them off in a hurry to stir something on the cooker. Later I find my glasses in the drawer with the kitchen utensils. So I buy my reading glasses ‘over the counter’ rather than at the optician’s. The lower price means that I can afford more than one pair.
If you like to sit outside to read, consider ‘sun readers’. Last year I purchased a pair from ipackmybag.com and think they are simply wonderful.
When you wear glasses on a regular basis you may wish to consider how they fit with your overall appearance. I think one of the advantages of the current vogue for brightly coloured glasses is that they reduce my urge to wear a lot of eye makeup. I’m sure that if I combine dark eye shadow and glasses with coloured frames, the finished look would be ‘too much’. Similarly, when I try to combine glasses, large earrings and a necklace I bear a resemblance to an over-decorated Christmas tree.
Someone with a larger bone structure or a different hair style could possibly carry it off.
My parting advice is to try to give yourself an inspection from time to time, and in the long run avoid getting stuck in a rut. As there is such a strong fashion influence on the optical world, keeping the same style frame for years can result in a very dated appearance.
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