We have written about <a href="/journal/why-modern-life-needs-an-eyewear-wardrobe">why one pair is rarely enough</a>. This is the practical follow-on: if you accept the argument, what do you buy, in what order, and over how long? Because buying three pairs at once is how people end up with two they do not wear.
Build it over years, not in one appointment
A wardrobe assembled in a single transaction is a guess about how you will use your eyes. A wardrobe assembled over three or four years is a record of how you actually do. Each pair should answer a problem you have noticed, which means waiting until you notice it.
Pair one: the one that does everything
Your main pair carries the largest share of your week, so it takes the largest share of the budget. This is the one worth spending on: a frame that holds its adjustment, a lens design suited to your day, measurements taken properly. Everything after it is a specialist, and specialists are only worth having once the generalist is right.
Pair two: decided by your week, not by the shop
Sunglasses if you are outdoors most days. A desk pair if you spend more than four hours at a fixed screen distance. A task pair if you have a hobby with a fixed working distance. We go through the decision properly in the second pair you will actually use — the short version is that it should cover a block of your week that pair one only just manages.
Pair three: the spare, or the different one
- A previous prescription kept as a spare is more useful than most people expect when a pair is sat on
- A different frame for a different register — work and weekend do not have to look the same
- A pair kept at a second location — the office, the car, the caravan
- A reading-only pair, if you are a varifocal wearer who reads for long stretches
- A robust pair for the garden, the workshop or the beach, where you would rather not risk the good ones
What not to do
Do not buy a second pair because it was half price, unless you had already worked out what it was for. Do not buy three frames in one appointment on the strength of an offer. And do not buy a specialist pair before your main pair is right — fixing the generalist usually removes the need for the specialist.
Keeping them current
When your prescription changes, the main pair gets reglazed or replaced and the others usually do not need to immediately — a sunglasses pair half a dioptre out is generally fine for another year, while a screen pair is not. We will tell you which of yours genuinely need updating rather than all of them, which is the sort of thing that is easier to say when we are not working to a target.
A wardrobe is built by noticing what your current pair does not quite do, then answering that. Bought all at once, it is just a guess with three receipts.← Back to the Journal
