Fashion 101** The Oscar Wylee Experience

Most of you will have heard of Oscar Wylee. Affordable yet stylish optical, offering deals such as two pairs from $149 – and free home trials, where you get a package of 5 styles to figure out your spectacle soul mate. Also, for every pair you buy, they donate a pair to someone in need, so you can see well and feel good about it.

Companies like to stay away from the word “cheap” believing it has nasty connotations like poor quality craftsmanship. Oscar Wylee is cheap — but offers top quality and on point design that established “affordable” companies can only dream of. I remember my Dad encouraging me to buy generic glasses from Specsavers and the pharmacy four years ago to save money — GENERIC.

“All those opposed to chafing, please say Aye”

I splurged on Tom Ford frames (no regrets) they had the closest option to the style I was after.

Fast forward to current day and Oscar Wylee just celebrated it’s third year in business — they are marking the occasion by opening their second store in Chatswood this weekend. The majority of their Home Try On trials have been coming from the North Shore, so this will allow Oscar Wylee to connect with their customer base and bring all the perks of their flagship store in the CBD directly to them. In anticipation of this, I went into the original Oscar Wylee store to discover what Chatswood can expect — and to replace my trusty old Tom Ford frames.

Welcome to Oscar Wylee

The flagship store on sussex street is essentially a gutted cathedral space – all white, with high ceilings and huge windows — the showroom feels like a chic gallery, but they certainly aren’t elitist. An elderly gent has just finished his eye exam and selected his style. He is a distinguished ‘Winston’ – he settles on the two pair deal: one in dark olive, the other in striped buck eye (a kind of variation on tortoise shell).

It’s my turn now. They do a preliminary test that gives you a rough prescription. I’m not sure what is going on but I stare at a colourful hot air balloon that seems vary far away and I hope for the best.

Diagnonis; blind.

I am ushered into the exam room to meet my optometrist Sahba. He is a bit of a babe. You could call him McSteamy, but I don’t want to cloud my bifocals.

“Read the last line for me”

“S – E – X – Y”

We go through all the exams, I want to impress Sahba, but my eyes are betraying me. He tells me I can still legally drive without glasses, so there is that.

These glasses are couture.

He restores my sight to 20/20 with the mysterious magic of bent glass, and I am ready to find my perfect pair. Am I a ‘Jarvis’ or an ‘Ashley’? All I know is that I am certainly not a ‘Draper’.

I steer towards the unisex and mens frames — thanks to my big nose I need a frame with a wider bridge. The deepest question is, am I round or square?

Unfortunately, round makes my face look like a pork bun.

I am ready to come to terms with being a square, despite wanting to be round my whole life. I choose ‘Montgomery’.

It’s hip to be square.

Suddenly out of nowhere, my in-store stylist hands me some different frames. The ‘Baxter’ frames look pretty round to me and I’m not sure if I can pull them off.

I slip Baxter onto my face and discover he isn’t quite round and he isn’t quite square — he is the guy you work with for a few years and exchange pleasantries with in the kitchen. One day he says something that isn’t quite on the straight and narrow, something that isn’t square, something exciting! So you follow each other on instagram and casually meet in large groups and the lines begin to curve and blur, and what is square becomes round and you just can’t wait for the work Christmas party to hurry up and come already because something is going to happen, you can feel it.

Baxter is the excitement of a work crush turned romance. Baxter is perfect for me.

Yaaaas, Gaga!

Baxter on my bed.

You can visit Oscar Wylee at the locations below, and visit their website to make a booking.

The eye exam is free and the glasses are sick.