How I became a spex maniac.

A lot of people want to talk to me about my spectacles. They are my style identifier and part of my personal brand. I like frames that are bold and unusual, not quite Dame Edna but different, well-designed and noticeable.

I have so many frames now that I have lost count. It is somewhere between 300 and 400, all with prescription lenses, but what everyone asks me (other than where I keep them – more on this later) is how I came to be so obsessed with eyewear.

It all started many years ago. I had needed to wear glasses from about age 15 as I stopped being able to see the blackboard at school. At that time there was little attractive to be had in spectacles. You got a free NHS pair which were the spare pair you never, ever wore and then something that made you look like an old man and which cost an arm and a leg. In my case a copper-coloured Rodenstock frame which was as good as it got.

Into my late teens, the optical market was becoming deregulated and frames were slightly more adventurous, lower cost and more widely available. I had a couple of Buggles-style frames followed by some Giorgio Armani, a Buddy Holly variant by Benetton and then some prescription Ray Ban sunglasses. The latter were worn at night exclusively as I went clubbing dressed in second-hand leather trousers and a slashed tee-shirt. Maybe I looked cool, who knows, but my eyewear was not attracting any attention.

I was on a shopping trip with my brother who needed some new frames. Visiting Brosgill Opticians in the centre of Leeds I noticed they had a handful of quite unusual frames. One particularly caught my eye. It consisted of a black cross bar with two black loops below for the lenses. I had never seen anything quite like this before but the black was a bit too stark for my face.

On enquiring if there were any other colours available, I was told that there were several in the range and I could order one but I would have to take it whether I liked it or not as it would be obtained specially for me. The frame, Pluto by LA Eyeworks, was duly ordered in gold.

Debbie Harry advertising the LA Eyeworks Pluto frame.

A few weeks later I was advised that the frame was ready for collection. However, the use of the word “gold” was somewhat inaccurate as the frame was really yellow as you can see. Of course I had to take it and tried it out on a couple of visits to the local pub. The reaction was unbelievable. Everyone was asking me about these glasses, they worked as an ice-breaker, conversation starter and attention grabber. 

Pluto frames. My "gold" frame is in the middle.

Once the initial excitement wore off I had to have another frame and this time bought LA Eyeworks Padre in green – one of my favourite frames of all time.

Vintage Padre frame

In 1993, Brosgills presented me with an invitation to a trade fair in Birmingham and explained that the entire LA Eyeworks range would be shown there. I should go and if any were interesting they would get then in on approval for me to consider at my leisure.

En route to the wedding of some friends, I visited the exhibition at the NEC and found a rather small stand dedicated to LA Eyeworks. It was manned by a someone I will never forget. His name, Alain Bekaert. Every frame he showed me he insisted I try on. In a thick French accent, he would say, “Do you lurve it or do you ‘ate it!”, no half measures for Alain. I “lurved” quite a few and they were delivered to Leeds a few weeks later. I think I bought four of them and by this point I was well and truly hooked. Everyone was talking about my glasses.

But as I was leaving the stand, Alain said something very interesting. He told me that there were only two designers in Europe I needed to be concerned with. One was LA Eyeworks which I now knew all about, the other was Theo. I asked him who they were and where they were. He was not very forthcoming, advising me that they were Belgian and I should go and find them.

Monday morning at the office it was my mission to locate this elusive brand. Before the Internet this had to be done the hard way. Directory Enquiries got me speaking to the Belgian Embassy in Eaton Square. They offered to look into this and several days later sent me a photocopied page from the Belgian Yellow Pages with an address and telephone number in Antwerp. I rang and asked if they had a catalogue, they did and they agreed to send one to me.

The Jiffy Bag that arrived a week later contained a kit to make up the catalogue. It remains one of the most innovative pieces of marketing I have ever seen. Each page consisted of a photocopy of a frame with typed information about the range of colours. The front and back cover consisted of an industrial carpet tile with the name “Theo” laser-cut into the front piece. Two nuts and bolts were provided to put the whole thing together with.

But not only was the catalogue amazing, the frames were like nothing I had ever seen before. I had to get to Antwerp and fast! As it happened in the coming weeks I had a planned trip to The Netherlands which was near enough. I was in Rotterdam on business, dealt with that then got a train directly to Antwerp where I emerged from the very grand Central Station and walked the 10 minutes or so up the Meir to meet Wim Somers at his small shop on Eiermarkt. He presented me with a vast collection and I left with seven frames. Six I bought, one was a gift, a frame called Cabiro in Canary Yellow which in fairness he probably would never had sold to anyone else as it was so crazy.

My vintage Cabrio frame in canary yellow

Theo frames suited me perfectly. Quirky, eclectic, sometimes eccentric, I began collecting them with an annual visit to the Antwerp shop. I also occasionally bought other brands. I was quite fond of Alain Mikli when they were being innovative and there were a few others too that caught my attention.

Over the years, the Antwerp shop has moved to larger premises, a trade business has been established in a nearby building and much of the work has been handed to Wim’s sons who now look after most things. My collection has grown too and I remain a big fan of their work.

A few years ago I arranged to go and choose some frames. I was arriving in the evening and rather than meeting in the headquarters where we usually met, they took me to the shop. There I met the company PR and marketing manager and a photographer too. My story was now their story and I was featured on the front page of the Theo newsletter wearing some rather fetching frames. A Theo client in Denmark likes this image and asked if it could be used in their store – so now there is a giant print of my head in an eyewear shop somewhere in Denmark. It doesn’t get much better than this!

Øjhesten glasses and contact lens store in Kolding, Denmark

Now I am slowly documenting my collection and posting on Instagram @straightspex. I hope to have the whole collection there during 2016 and hope that this might be interesting and inspiring to people who love eyewear.

Oh yes, and where do I keep them? Actually, they do not take up a lot of space. I use sample cases which hold eight or nine frames. These make having a couple of hundred fames immediately to hand very simple and manageable.

Good eyewear is a wonderful means of self expression and getting noticed. Whether it is one frame well chosen or a number skilfully deployed, people will remember you for your glasses if nothing else. To me, it is an opportunity too good to miss.