yay, new glasses!

Well, I’ve had these for a few weeks now, I just never got around to actually writing about them because I wanted to write about other things first. 
C’est la vie. 

There’s some really old photos of Bert and I in this post, which is kinda funny, really. 
Making this post, I’ve also come to the conclusion that Bert and I should probably not be allowed into a photo booth with other people. Oh well :). 



I have been wearing Theo glasses since 2001, which is a hella long time. 
I’ve not always been wearing Theo frames. I had to start wearing glasses back in 1991 when I was 11. My first pair was a clear and pink pair of cateye frames my mother picked out. 
I absolutely HATED them at the time (I would totally wear them now though, if only I could find them so I could have new lenses put in so they could be my sunglasses). Yes my mother is cruel, moving on… 

After about a year, my dad took pity on me, and let me choose another pair of glasses from the same opticians (a place in Mechelen. It’s a good place, don’t get me wrong, but they are not nearly as exciting as Somers is, opticians wise), because they tend to only get exciting frames in once in a while, on a fluke, rather than anything else.

So from my 2nd year of high school ‘till the middle of my 6th (final) year, I wore these metallic hunters green frames that were best described as frog eyes. They’re actually pretty hip again now. 
We ended up emergency replacing them because they were literally coming apart, and my dad did NOT want to let me ductape them together. I totally would have, I loved those frames. 
But yeah, we went back to the same place, and because they didn’t have anything that really appealed to me, I just ended up settling for oval Armani glasses. We had the lenses refitted for the new frames, and the old ones ended up thrown away because there was literally no saving them. 
I did like that you could bend the legs of those Armani frames outwards, so if your hair got stuck in the little hinges, you could kinda lift it out, that was good.
But I never really loved those glasses because well, they were so terribly dull.

When I started going to Antwerp more in college, I came across Somers opticians, the Theo flagship store. 
And lo and behold, they had more awesome frames! 
Of course, back in those days, their frames weren’t quite as far out as now (they do also sell normal frames, but I ignore those), but they had some cool designs no one else had, and they came in more original colours. 

They were a little pricier, but my dad took pity on me and let me have a pair of square thin black titanium frames. Which I wore to the point where they couldn’t really support my heavy lenses anymore. 
I don’t own that pair anymore, we had the display lenses put back in so a friend of mine could use them for his LARP character. And then another friend started using them, also for his LARP character, and he asked if he could keep them because he loved how they looked, so I said that was fine, as I couldn’t use them anymore anyway.

 

Because the prescription was still good when I retired that pair, I got them again, but in purple. The purple was this weird rubber coating, which looks really cool, but it tends to get sticky gross if I don’t wear them for a while (I soak them in a glass of water for a day and then they’re fine again). 
But sadly something really strange happened to them and one of the lenses went wavy, so whilst the frames are fine, the lenses aren’t. 
I can’t be bothered to spend money on getting it sorted out, because I don’t like wearing those frames anymore anyway. But I’m still keeping them.

 

I actually got pretty bored with that purple quite quickly, and because my eyesight is pretty bad, I figured it was time to get a second pair just so I wouldn't be without glasses for a week in case a frame broke. 

I did get a pair of Theo frames, a black and dark purple/blue (depending on the light) ones in acetate, the Theo Floridita, BUT… I got them at an optician local to Bert. Which was a HUGE mistake. 
When I picked them up, I couldn’t see properly. Turned out they had given me glasses for an astigmatism I didn’t have. 
I complained, and they said they would replace the lenses as it was their bad. Went to pick them up, nothing had changed. 
In the end, I ended up taking them to the place in Mechelen I used to go to, and they put in lenses that were right for me. So that was a very expensive joke. And I vowed that I had had ENOUGH and would only ever get lenses at Somers opticians (because I did notice they were MUCH better quality) from that point onwards. 

By the time it was Autumn 2008, I had worn the hell out of those acetate frames, to the point where the people at Somers had fixed them and fixed them and fixed them again, and they are still alive. I still have them. 
If I go to a concert where I know there’s a lot of crowd surfing and dangerous moshing (moshing with spiked bracelets should NOT be allowed, the end) going on, I will wear those. Actually, I went to find them for this post and I think I’ll just start to wear them a little more too :). Even though they have inferior lenses and the frames need a clean. I need to get that clean sorted out.

 

I really miss that purikura machine! I wish they had replaced it when it broke!

That was also the year where Theo really started to go pretty extravagant with their frames, and I immediately dove into that and got me a pair of black with grey Hanafuda frames. 



Because I did want cat eyes, but I couldn’t find any that suited me, and these were like Japanese cat eye supervillain frames. 
I still wear those from time to time, but I’ve grown so used to wearing really big frames that I find it very hard to see out of these tiny ones. I certainly can’t drive a car wearing them, or a bike. Don’t want to end up causing/being in accidents! 

 

I wore those ‘till 2012, when I was admittedly a little bored with them. So back to Somers opticians it was, and I got my soixante+un frames. 
Gods I love those frames. They are INDESTRUCTIBLE. I’m not even joking. 
This happened, which sucked, and not a single scratch. I’ve recently had them cleaned up so they look just like new too.

 

I still wear those from time to time as they are awesome, and I always wear them as my sunglasses as my sunglasses clip is made for those. 
But sadly, due that incident, they are often too heavy on my nose and cause me pain *very sad face*. 
Which is why next year, I’ll be buying a pair of prescription sunglasses (bye bye cash). 

 

So, it was once again time for new frames. 
I had kinda put it off, switching between Hanafuda and Soixante+un, but it wasn’t a good solution. 
I had seen the WA frames when they first came out, and I was all: OMG batwing frames! But I talked myself out of it, figuring it wasn’t necessary to get new frames. As time went on, it really became clear that it was, if I wanted to continue driving and riding my bike safely at least.

 

When we went to Antwerp with my friend Lora to try out frames, I tried the WA, and fell in love with it. The weekend after, Bert and I went back, so he could at least have a look at frames with me. 
I tried a whole bunch of frames, but I still loved the WA the most. 
I did end up getting it in black and grey rather than bronze and beige (because the beige did not agree with my skin tone at all, pesky beige!). 
A week after that, I picked them up. 

 

And then it took me about 2 weeks to realise they are actually asymmetrical. Which is pretty shameful on my part. Then again, no one else around me noticed it before me (they didn’t ‘till I started pointing it out) so I feel a little better about that. 

But yeah, these are lightweight, don’t hurt my nose and are big enough for me to drive. All good. 
Also: batwing frames people, batwing frames. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person that calls them that, but that’s fine by me.



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