Mitch here!
Up until recently, I’d only ever bought sunglasses by haggling street vendors in New York whenever I was there. Every year, I’d buy a dozen $5 pairs and slowly lose them over the course of 12 months. Admittedly, they looked terrible. The best they had were designed for women, and they were apparently pretty bad for my eyes. But man, were they cheap!
In anticipation of our drive to the South, I decided to be an adult and buy proper sunglasses. Which is how I found out that the glasses game is totally rigged. A single company, Luxotica, produces nearly 80 percent of the major brands of eyewear sold today… including all Rayban, Sunglasses Hut, Target Optical and LensCrafters. They’re all the same company! And, as you might expect, glasses are stupid expensive.
Luckily, Warby Parker is one of the few non-Luxotica brands and it shows. I’m about to do a very blogger thing right now:
This isn’t a sponsored post, guys! I just really like Warby Parker!
Oof. But it’s true. They’re one of those special stores that will do anything to make the customer happy. So I masked up and headed to the store around the corner from us to both buy some sunglasses and get out of the house for once. It was a solid win-win.
Trying glasses on in-app actually works.
Warby Parker has an impressive selection including many goofy pairs for silly goose selfies to keep guys like me entertained. In-store, they sanitize each pair after try-ons, and the staff was super attentive to my ever growing pile of discarded glasses. Warby Parker will also send you 5 frames to try on at home for free via their website. Or you can use their app to virtually try-on glasses, which is great due to simplicity, convenience, and the fact that you can screenshot them to annoy your wife in the middle of her work day. (See above.) Warby Parker offers free shipping and free returns, too, so there’s no risk in just ordering yourself the glasses since you can send them back if they don’t work.
Ultimately, I bought both the Barkley and the Sutton for $95 per pair. I have a gigantic freak head and I loved that both of these glasses came in wide and extra-wide sizing, which was definitely not an option on the streets of New York. Each pair of Warby Parker sunglasses also comes with a slim, heavy duty carrying case which is a nice touch.
Kelly also wants me to mention that Warby Parker is a great place for eye exams, reading glasses and contact lenses as well. Because she is blind as a bat.
I loved shopping for these sunglasses so much that I wrote a blog post about it. And I’m sure that Lucy will destroy my new glasses by the end of our trip, so I might get the chance to shop again soon. Updates to come!
Mitch. OUT!
