Some of ours are designed and made here in Digbeth; the rest come from independent eyewear makers around the world that we genuinely rate. Good shapes, good materials, proper construction and very little interest in whose name is written on the side.
Our own spectacles, designed and made in the Doctor Oculus workshop. They usually start because I have a shape in my head that I can’t find anywhere else, which eventually results in drawings, prototypes, acetate shavings everywhere and far more sanding than anybody would reasonably choose to do for fun.
They are made in small numbers from proper acetate, with the proportions, edges and details worked out here rather than selected from a catalogue. This is the most Doctor Oculus eyewear on the shelves because, quite literally, nobody else could have made it.
Henau earn their place because nobody else really makes glasses like them. They’re Belgian, gloriously geometric and very good at taking a shape that sounds completely unreasonable on paper and making it look fantastic on an actual face.
The frames begin as hand-drawn designs and are made with the sort of attention to shape, proportion and construction that makes them interesting to us as spectacle makers, not just as something colourful to put on a shelf. Some are bold, some are downright peculiar, but they’re never boring. If you want your glasses to actually contribute something to your face, start here.
Dick Moby first got our attention because they were doing sustainability properly long before every eyewear company discovered the colour green. They use biodegradable acetate and recycled materials, manufacture their acetate frames in Italy and deliberately avoid the endless cycle of throwaway seasonal collections.
Thankfully, the glasses are also good. That bit matters rather more than the environmental essay. The shapes are strong without becoming costume, the materials feel right and there’s a slightly playful Amsterdam sensibility running through them. Responsible eyewear is only useful if you still desperately want to wear it, and Dick Moby manage both.
Waiting for the Sun make the kind of frames that are easy to underestimate until you put them on. French, slightly offbeat and very good with colour, they take familiar shapes and interfere with them just enough to make them interesting.
Their main material is a bio-sourced, biodegradable acetate, alongside recycled steel, but what earns them space at Doctor Oculus is that the environmental thinking hasn’t replaced the eyewear thinking. The frames are comfortable, well finished and genuinely wearable, with small details that stop them disappearing into a sea of perfectly adequate glasses. Sensible enough for every day, odd enough for us to like them.
Bird are from Devon and are one of the few eyewear companies where the sustainability story feels like considerably more than somebody changing the packaging and writing “conscious” on the website. They’re a B Corp, use materials including plant-based acetates and recycled metals, and have put real effort into making frames that are repairable, recyclable and intended to stay in use.
That would mean very little to us if the glasses were dull. Fortunately, they aren’t. Bird are particularly good at colour and easy-to-wear shapes with enough character to make them worth choosing. British independent eyewear that takes the environmental bit seriously without making you dress like a hemp merchant.
Entourage of 7 have a bit of Los Angeles swagger about them, then ruin the stereotype by having many of their frames beautifully made in Japan. That combination is precisely why we like them: Californian shapes, vintage references and proper construction rather than nostalgia printed onto something flimsy.
You’ll find substantial acetate, double-riveted hinges, titanium and details that reward actually picking the glasses up and looking at how they’ve been made. There’s a strong 60s and 70s influence running through the collection, particularly in the sunglasses, but they don’t feel like fancy dress. They feel like the pair somebody interesting has owned for years.