Notes From The City: An Abundant Life

Years ago a friend from Hawaii told me about Vuarnet sunglasses. He was an outdoor kind of guy, always on the beach or hiking in waterfalls or driving with the top down on his car, and he said the protection they gave for your eyes was unmatched, and they were so well made that they gave a promise to let you return them for repair any time anywhere. At the time he told me about them, I had been wearing a variety of designer knock-offs I'd bought on the streets of New York City - I think at that point I was onto my aviators, but I'd also bought a pair somewhere in there that looked a bit like the glasses he showed me. His were brown rimmed and mine were black, and he told me they came in other colors, so after I'd thought about it for a bit I realized that if I invested in a really good pair of sunglasses I'd probably be doing my eyes a favor, and if they were really as good as he said I'd rarely have to buy another pair. So I decided to try and see if they were really as wonderful as he told me they were, and I have been wearing those sunglasses ever since. I have had to buy a new pair from time to time, but only because of the way I live in my sunglasses. I'm one of those people who truly does wear my sunglasses at night, or almost - I have very light sensitive eyes, so I wear them all the time, even at dusk and on gray days, and I am lost if I don't have them with me, so they are in my handbag or coat pocket or on my face or hanging on me somewhere all day long every day, every where I go. Because they are on and off my face and in and out of pockets and bags and clothes so much, I sometimes don't put them back in their case, and so the first two pairs I had fell off the front of the shirt I had them hanging on and onto concrete floors and snapped. They'd probably fallen many times before that happened because I'd already had them for several years, so I went ahead and bought a new pair that I've had for more than ten years now. Each time I bought the same style - known as the VS002, they are the classic that was designed after the first pair ever worn by the founder Jean Vuarnet in 1960. If you look throughout history since then, at photos of so many stars and luminaries, the 002 is everywhere on everyone famous, from Mick Jagger to the Kennedy's. And they are the best sunglasses I have every worn. I've tried others from time to time, and nothing compares. I also happen to love everything vintage and classic, so the history strikes a lovely chord for me.

About a month ago I noticed that the pair I had been wearing and bringing everywhere with me like an old friend for so long were beginning to crack around the lenses. I'd dropped them countless times, and had stopped using the case long ago, so they were jangling around in my bag with keys and phone and everything else, and being dumped on the ground and generally taken advantage of. Though they were good friends to me I hadn't been treating them well at all, and they were starting to show the wear and tear, and so I started to look for a new pair, only to find that the places where I usually found them didn't carry them any more. So I went online and asked around and had a very tough time tracking them down. It seems they'd stopped making them for a time, but had just begun again, and from November 18, 2016 through January 18, 2017 they'd had a pop up shop in SoHo. So I contacted the company to ask where I could find them now, and they told me about a shop on Lexington Avenue where I made my way as soon as I could, and lo and behold in this oasis of an optician shop I found my long lost friend once again. In addition to Vuarnet, Loft Opticians has other popular brands like Oakley and Ray Ban, and they also offer full service optician services for every eyewear need. Lexington Avenue is itself a New York classic, and that afternoon I felt like I'd walked back a bit in time to walk into my future. I've traveled everywhere with my Vuarnets, in Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall, hiking, sailing, at work and at play, in Switzerland, London, Kent, Paris, Normandy, Honfleur, Frankfort, Hamburg, East Berlin, Aruba, Bonair, Oahu, Maui, Miami, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Montecito, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Long Island, Westchester County, Rockland County, Philadelphia, Washington DC, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Rhode Island, Boston, New Hampshire, and everywhere in between. With each classic pair, life just gets better, and now with my new pair the best is yet to come.

Loft Opticians

1106 Lexington Avenue at 77th Street

New York City

(212) 535-7272