My pathetic attempt to buy non-Chinese eyeglass frames

For about a month I tried to buy a pair of non-Chinese eyeglass frames using my vision insurance. I finally gave up and bought a set of cheap Puritan frames at the Wal-Mart vision center. Here's a brief summary of my not-so-valiant attempt.

The last time I bought glasses, I bought Safilo frames from a local chain called Eye Works. They're a really nice pair, made in Italy. Not only was I happy to buy Italian, but it was convenient: Eye Works is next door to my eye doctor.

Naturally, I visited Eye Works again, but for some mysterious reason they no longer carry Safilo. Instead the salesman wanted to sell me frames that were made in China and cost nearly $300, when my old Italian-made frames cost less than $200. I object to that sort of thing. I (might) understand that under the current trade and political regimes, manufacturers find it cheaper to move their manufacturing operations to China; otherwise, they won't be able to compete with those who do. I am far less keen on the notion that they move operations to China, thereby cutting costs, yet jack up their prices all the same.

Admittedly, I make things hard on myself by having non-standard tastes. On the one hand, I tend to be impervious to modern fashions: I want a pair of circular frames, or as close to circular as possible. I also want thin frames, preferably black—although I can put up with a color different from black, as long as it isn't flashy. Sadly, modern frame fashions are rectangular, frequently thick plastic, and very flashy. I am, needless to say, the frame salesman's worst nightmare.

Okay, next up: the local mall. Our local Sears and JC Penney's don't have optical departments. Don't ask me why not; I don't know. That's just the way it is. Nor did the national chain in the mall carry anything remotely resembling my tastes. Why does everyone have to be so flashy and fashionable these days? Can't a fella just buy a modest pair of glasses?

Actually, a fella can, but he has to buy them online. In fact, I found two Safilo styles that suited me just fine online, the Safilo Team 3899 and the Safilo Team 3900.


A call to my vision insurance provider revealed that they don't cover online purchases. Dagummit.

Next up: a local store, Heritage Vision. The clerk didn't seem particularly happy once he heard my specifications. (It probably didn't help that it was near closing time, either.) He did find a pair of glasses on clearance from Brooks Brothers (?) that were round and made in Italy. They used to be made by Safilo, he explained, but have been discontinued, which is why they're on clearance. They were also too flashy for my tastes. To show how difficult I make it for the companies: most businessmen would probably be happy with these glasses, because they were gold with soft patches of brown. I won't put up with that, uh-uh. Gold, okay. Brown, okay. Gold and brown? Too immodest.

Wal-Mart was in the same parking lot as Heritage, so I popped by, even though my wife and I avoid Wal-Mart whenever possible, which is to say, most of the time. (We also save money that way, because my wife is quite good at hunting deals at the regular grocery stores, whereas Wal-Mart savings tend to be superficial, and let's not get into the quality of the fruit. Ugh.) I went in, and whaddayaknow: Wal-Mart sells Safilo. (Read that again. Wal-Mart sells Safilo.) However, they didn't have the style I wear now, nor any Safilo styles similar to it. They also weren't able to special order any frames from Safilo; what they have is all you can get. One of their Safilo frames came close, but it was half-rimless. I won't put up with that stuff: I want a full rim around the lenses, dagummit. (How do you describe those frames where the bottom has no rim? I don't know.) I also noticed some circularish glasses from other brands that came close to my specifications, but they were made in China. Like, say, a Puritan brand for—brace for it—$38. Again: $38, about one-fifth the usual brands that are made in China. Putting some fashion designer's name on my face isn't worth paying five times the price of manufacture and distribution. They ought to pay me for the advertising space.

I tried two more stores after Wal-Mart. One said that they'd be able to special order the frames I was interested in, then called back a few days later to say that no, one frame I was interested in was discontinued, and the other was back ordered until September 29th. I visited them anyway to see what they had, and was disappointed. More of the same: flashy this, rectangular that.

At least Wal-Mart had something vaguely similar to what I wanted. Oh, well: I went in and re-selected the half-rimless Safilo frames. At this point the salesman informed me that they required special polycarbonate lenses because they are half-rimless. My vision insurance, which doesn't accept online purchases, only covers basic plastic frames. So I'd be paying a premium not only for the frames (the insurance only covers frames up to $100, and these frames were a non-negligible amount more) but also for the lenses.

At this point I lost all my desire to fight any more. I didn't even like these frames that much. And what was I fighting for, anyway? According to the Italian Wikipedia entry on Safilo, they shut down their Italian operations this year and started manufacturing frames in—you guessed it—China, although they continue to label their frames as Made in Italy:

Nel 2009 viene chiuso lo stabilimento di Precenicco (UD) e mandate a casa 300 persone, sempre nel 2009 nello stabilimento di Martignacco (UD), vengono mandati a casa 450 persone su un complessivo di 600, in contemporanea viene aperta un fabbrica in Cina con 3000 operai. La Safilo timbra ancora i suoi occhiali col Made in Italy.

(I've been told that Italian bicycle manufacturers have a habit of doing this, too, but I don't know whether it's true.)

I had learned that a few days before, but had held on to my goal of buying Safilo frames in the vague hope that by buying frames made in the past year or so I'd still be buying Italian frames. At this point it was clear that I had confused principle with vanity, and it was too much of a hassle, anyway. I went back to the wall, grabbed a pair of Puritans that are nearly identical to my current frames, my stupid vision insurance covered everything except a $15 deductible for both frames and glasses.