London Retro Eyewear: A Glasses Direct Review

The first thing my mum did when I turned up to lunch in my lovely new glasses from London Retro at Glasses Direct was nudge my dad hard.

“Who does Alice look like?” she kept asking him.

Apparently my Nanna Elfreda’s legacy lives on not just in Elfie’s name but in my new glasses too, proving that London Retro really does make authentic-looking retro glasses, similarly worn by my Nanna in the 70s! But Nanna B or not, my new glasses are awesome.

 I haven’t always been a glasses person. I’ve needed to wear them since the age of 12 (my glasses from the 90s aren’t yet back in fashion) and switched to contact lenses when I was 15. Because I’ve only ever worn glasses as a back-up to my contact lenses when I’m at home or feeling a bit rubbish they have always made me feel like I’m dressed down or scruffy when I’m wearing them. I’m trying to change this and have been amassing a collection of eyewear that’ll make me feel special, whether at home in my scruffs or out and about attempting to feel like a human being on 4 hours sleep.

My London Retro pair are my new favourites. I’ve had so many compliments on them – one being from the girl on the Bobbi Brown counter who had perfect eyeliner flicks so SHE KNOWS. They make me feel all Mad Men/Pan Am.

The process of choosing my glasses from Glasses Direct was totally pain-free. When I picked some from Specsavers recently I was almost overwhelmed with the choice: I stood there for at least half an hour umming and ahhing over my two choices, one of which I don’t wear at all now. At GD you can pick four frames online to try out at your leisure at home and then you pick which one of those you’d like to have as your glasses. I’m really not good with an overload of choices so for me there was much less stress involved.

Anyway, I took my mum and dad out for lunch a couple of weekends ago and in exchange I made them take hundreds of photographs of me in my new glasses for your enjoyment. Which I thought was a perfectly fair tradeoff (you just know I was cringing the whole way through).

The important info: this pair are the Malcolm in tortoiseshell and you can get them for the reasonable sum of £120. When the time comes to purchase more glasses (next week? I’m pretty keen) I will certainly be back.

 Thank you to London Retro at Glasses Direct for sending me this lovely pair of glasses to review. I love ‘em.