Sustainable Eyewear and Luxury Eyewear in the same issue?

Huh? Don’t get it?

I’m suggesting you should consider these and in fact, all options. Such is the plethora of eyewear. This is the reality of Op Culture as I like to call it these days. We’re always reinforcing so many of the unique aspects of eyewear and sunwear in the consumer product scenario. The very fact that it is a need and a want puts it in a refined perspective of regard. And speaking to that viewpoint, the subject arenas of sustainability and luxury stand out as fine niches of concern, cost and consciousness well worth your attention as you build connectivity with your patients/customers.

There’s data delivered in the dual MarketPulses of this issue showing both of these eyewear categories in a state of both evolution and revolution. Sustainability in eyewear was not really on anyone’s agenda a decade ago. That is no longer the case on the part of manufacturers AND consumers. And the very premise of what defines an item as “luxury” has gone through some distinct and important changes also in these past few years to the point where one needs to cautiously approach the subject of higher cost, superb quality and well-defined attributes with a completely new perspective.

YOU can make all that work for you and your patients by honestly honing your educated and assimilated perceptions on the eyewear you dispense that touches on these newly defined arenas of honest sustainability and freshly defined luxury. But make no mistake as you must understand you can’t just stand back and wait for such frames to jump off the shelf and on to a consumer’s face.

The interest is there and flaring on the part of the purchaser, but that focus is fine-tuned, well-informed and not fooled by just casual lip service. It demands a level of expertise deeply bolstered by truth, information and the ongoing security of an optical professional in for the long haul. Our whole optical culture is on the positive vibe of new commitments. You need to re-evaluate your interface with your customers. You need to not just tell stories about frames. You need to put yourself and that person sitting across the fitting table IN that story.

This is the new Op Culture. Live it. Luxuriate in it. Spice it with an essential sense of variety. And keep a communal eye on how that eyewear will impact everyone’s life, yours included.

• James J. Spina
Editor-in-Chief
[email protected]