Illustration by Elise Troister.
Are you wearing glasses? Then you’re probably wearing Luxottica. With a revenue of almost 8 billion dollars annually, the world’s largest eyewear company has “retail banners” that include LensCrafters, Sunglass Hut International, Bright Eyes, Pearle Opticians, Pearle Vision, Sears Optical, Target Optical, OPSM, Budget Eyewear, Laubman & Pank… you get it. And if you’re thinking, “god no, I only buy designer?” Well, think again, darlin’. Prada, Versace, Oliver Peoples, Oakley, DKNY, Vogue, Salvatore Ferragamo, Tory Burch, D&G, Club Monaco: they weren’t designed by an elitist, Parisian mastermind in Neuilly-sur-Seine either. They’re Luxottica.
By now, being a smart glasses-wearing type and all, you’ve already figured out two things: one, the eyewear industry is a powerful oligopoly (the second largest eyewear company, Safilo, doesn’t even come close to Luxottica; it has a modest yearly revenue of just under two billion) and two, that perhaps those “designer” glasses aren’t really worth their price. True, almost nothing in fashion is; still it might bring a tear to some folks’ eyes to know their $500 + prescription glasses are made in the exact same factories as no-name styles, like the ugly ones tucked away at the back of a LensCrafters store. In some cases, even the materials used to make plastic frames are exactly the same (as shown in this BBC clip).
Why do bits of plastic and metal cost so much in the first place? Why is a basic necessity that should be easily affordable in the 21st century still subject to unnaturally inflated prices, so much so that some people consider laser eye surgery as a cheaper alternative in the long run? Doesn’t matter: the times are changing.
In the last few years, online eyewear companies have been popping up all over the internet, selling glasses at considerably cheaper prices by cutting out the middle man and retailer mark-ups that usually double or triple the costs to consumer. While some online companies just sell Luxottica-made glasses, others have created some much-needed competition in the market by launching their own lines. Arguably, one of the most successful and fashion-worthy of the bunch is Warby Parker, a venture that started between four friends, less than two years ago, with a business model that’s being replicated ever since.
Warby Parker has created their own line of vintage-inspired frames that’s hitting all the right notes with a young, tech-savvy, creative generation. Their website offers face recognition so you can upload a picture of yourself and see what you look like in each frame or—a more foolproof method—a free Home Try-Ons program, in which you select five frames, they ship them to you, and you try before buying. In just three weeks of launching their company, Warby Parker had sold out of every frame, beating their sales target for the whole year.
There is, however, one fickle little thing that makes buying prescription glasses online so tricky: your PD, or the distance between your pupils. It sounds like a simple enough measurement to know, but do you? It’s not standard procedure for your PD to be measured during an eye exam. Different countries have different rules about whether you’re entitled to know your PD at this stage: in the UK, petitions are being created as a result of GOC regulations, which allows optometrists to decide whether they want to include a patient’s PD measurement on his or her prescription form. But as you’ve probably guessed, most of them don’t. Instead, your PD is usually measured once you actually pop into an eyewear store to buy glasses. Because your PD gets checked at a retail store, not during your eye exam, it’s for customers to bypass the retailer and buy prescription glasses online or, in most cases, anywhere other than a banner of Luxottica.
This is not a conspiracy. I’ve talked to many optical store owners here in Toronto who’ve told me that they might go bankrupt in a couple of years due to the expansion of the online market. Try going into an optical store and tell them to name any price in exchange for a measurement that takes them seconds to do. I recall one angry salesmen saying “I can’t give you your PD unless you buy glasses. It’s against the law of Ontario!” but after some investigation, I’ve yet to find out whether this is true.
Yes, a few independent family-run optical stores may have to close their doors, but like, so did companies who made horse carriages. Realistically speaking, the brick-and-mortar store will continue to exist as long as we live in a world of uncertainty, no matter how strongly people adopt e-commerce habits. But where you buy your glasses isn’t the point. Choice is. Choice is a beautiful thing that forces businesses to use competitive prices and designers to create better products. It will be interesting to see if in a few years time, Luxottica can hold onto its current power especially with the increasing popularity of 3D printing and decreasing costs for laser eye surgery (did you know in three years, you can turn your eyes from brown to blue with just a simple procedure that costs 5K?). In the meantime, it’s silly that something as simple as not being able to get your PD helps to protect an oligopoly. In business, as in politics, alternatives are what make the world a fairer, better and clearer place.
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Niusha Amiri interns at the Toronto Standard and last wrote about Kristine Moran’s art.
