monessay

The 57thDemocratization of spectacles.

My eyesight is good. Or should I write , I didn't like it.

As a student, I had 2.0 in both eyes; if I could have tested further beyond that, I could have done better.

There was a movie called "The Bushmen. It was a big hit as it featured the lives of desert dwellers (bushmen) in the Republic of Botswana in an amusing way. In the movie, it was whispered that the Bushmen's eyesight was 4.0, and when I was a kid, I believed that I had 2.5 eyesight.

I can see it anyway.

Some people use binoculars or opera glasses at baseball games, theaters, etc. , but I never understood what they meant. After all, I can see. I borrowed a pair of binoculars, but they only magnified the image, and I could easily read the name of the manufacturer of the glove at hand or the title of the book in the play with my naked eye. There was no reason to go to the trouble of magnifying them.

After about age 35, his vision began to deteriorate. Astigmatism began to set in, and he began to see differently from left to right. So, I decided to get a new pair of glasses as a fashion accessory. The editor in charge of the Series I was working on at the time was in charge of glasses for that magazine, so I asked him about it and got a pair of corrective glasses made by a certain manufacturer with black celluloid frames. For a while after that, this black celluloid frame became my trademark. Whenever I have a staff member draw a portrait of me, I am usually depicted wearing the glasses. Although my eyesight was not that bad, the image was more powerful than I had imagined, and before long I came to be regarded as a person with poor eyesight.

My eyesight has gradually and quietly deteriorated since then, and now it is barely enough to be listed in the requirements section of my driver's license. When I got my driver's license in the U.S. a few years ago, the time difference and fatigue made my eyes blurry and I almost lost it. . In the end, I guessed it by intuition.

As I mentioned above, being a spectacle user in my late 30's, I had no idea how expensive it was to make spectacles. I had no idea that the price of lenses gets higher as one's eyesight gets worse, and that it costs many times more to make them thinner and flatter. When I heard that a frame from a well-known manufacturer with reasonable lenses would cost close to 100,000 yen, I felt sorry for people with poor eyesight.

Many Japanese people have vision problems. If I were not a customer, I would not be concerned about such things, but now that I am an avid customer, I am not a stranger.

I have been getting new bifocals once in the last few years . They are fine for looking into the distance and handling small documents, but not for reading for long periods of time. Because they only focus on the lower part of the lens, the angle between my face and the book is fixed, and it is rather tiring. . Therefore, I have a pair of glasses dedicated to reading at home and at work. Even though they are for reading only , they have black celluloid frames. . I should have gone for something with lighter frames. . Even if I wanted to change them, I would not be too aggressive considering the expense.

Today, however, several manufacturers have emerged that offer such expensive eyeglasses at reasonable prices to make them accessible. They have democratized eyeglasses, or perhaps they are the "UNIQLO" of eyeglasses.

One of them is "Zins.

Actually, I had one made here once in the past . But the lenses were too strong and I had to return them and get a refund. If you think about it, this is great. Even lenses made because they don't fit can be returned. . even though they can't re-sell them because they're not clothes. It's sort of the ultimate in customer service.

I was thinking that I needed a new pair of glasses for driving , and I just saw these flip-up glasses. They are perfect for driving. . I can drive into tunnels without worrying about them snapping back up.

JINS Switch -Flip Up- ¥8,000+TAX

The 2020 JINS SWITCH model comes with a flip-up plate featuring "the ability to raise and lower colored lenses while wearing glasses. The hinge, which should be present on most flip-ups, is missing, and a magnetic opening/closing mechanism has been incorporated to create a sleek and clean shape.

PROFILE

Toshiyuki Sai

Publisher, HOUYHNHNM / Editor-in-Chief, HOUYHNHNM Unplugged

After working as a freelance editor, he managed stylists and started his own editing/production company, which changed its name to Rhino Inc. in 2006.