AURUM x SPECSTACULAR OPTICIANS
Interview with Specstacular Opticians
July 17 2023 - By Lisja Tërshana
At the corner of Cheshire Street in East London rests a mystical yellow store full of colourful glasses brimming with sunlight. Specstacular Opticians draws artists, loyal customers, and curious passersby looking for unique glasses or optical services that are fun, creative, and customised to them. In this interview with Hala and Keval, we look at their journey in the eyewear industry in the UK, the importance of authenticity, and how the intimate process of choosing your glasses can (literally) change your life.
Tell me about your work — How did you start? What business model did you use for it?
Hala: I studied to be an optometrist, and Keval was a graphic designer, but we have been in this industry for many years. I always felt that opticians could be quite conservative and reserved in the UK... We felt there was a lack of options for people who are unique and want to express themselves differently, so we came up with our idea and a plan when we first met 17 years ago. After saving enough money, we put up our own store! We love beautiful things — whether it be art, clothes, design, fashion, hair, or makeup —we have spent many years collecting and curating to build a collection, one that extends beyond this room. As opticians are scientifically trained, often eyewear is viewed in a practical and functional way. Whereas we also like to concentrate on the aesthetic and craft of eyewear and so look at them as a piece of art. Our approach to choosing eyewear involves looking at many aspects of an individual in a more in-depth level, to find their perfect pair.
What is being Authentic to you? How can you relate it to your business & own value?
Being authentic means being comfortable with being honest about our feelings, thoughts, and values. Even when this bucks the trend of what is considered "popular" and what we should be wearing, how we should behave and speak. We have always liked different and unique eyewear, which is considered odd, difficult or too unusual in the general optician industry. Therefore we do not have a business with a quick stock turnover. It depends on the right person coming in and matching the right pair of glasses to them. This can take months or years. It is about something other than the quick buck for us. It is the satisfaction when we find the perfect pair of glasses for an individual and the magic that happens at that moment of matching.
How would you describe your customer habits, and has that changed throughout the years?
This is an area that changes a lot, and so does the flow of our customers.
Thankfully we have a lovely loyal client base that have continued to support us since we started. Our local community was predominantly creatives and artists. Now with gentrification in the area we have a bigger variety of people from different backgrounds and industries. So we like to help people understand the creativity possible in eyewear. It helps people grow, follow their intuition and develop their own ways. The mission is to create happiness for people and try to achieve that “feel good” factor on a daily basis. People aren't aware of how important it can be.
How do you see the challenge in a positive way? How do you imply changes to your industry?
Challenge forces you to self-reflect and think about how you are and do things. It stops you from stagnating and keeps progression and striving to do your best.
We are always open and flexible to change. Being a small business, we can directly feel the changes in taste and fashion over the months and years and adapt what we offer to reflect that.
Does your practice get affected by the current trends and how fast they change? How does your business cope with them?
Yes, we are in a high fashion area frequented by the fashion world and designers. We also assist numerous fashion/eyewear designers due to our large archive of eyewear, so we quite often see fashion trends in the development stages. However, we don’t generally follow trends and tend to source unique and unusual eyewear. We try to make sure we have a variety of styles, shapes, colours, and sizes that will incorporate whatever trends and fashions come and go.
Most of what we stock here is timeless, so whatever you purchase from here is to add to your collection, It's not to replace anything.
Why is being Unique important? What is the challenge of being Different nowadays?
Being unique is important to us on a personal and business level. As people, we enjoy being unique in our style and image and being individuals. The world feels filled with the same imagery on social media and the high streets. Big conglomerate companies with a majority share of the markets dictate the same styles on every high street, town, and city worldwide. So to stand out and be eye-catching helps if you are unique. It stops people in their tracks and encourages them to consider the alternative, be different, and see the beauty in individuality. The challenge of being different is staying different! Now with social media, it is very easy to copy styles quickly and for unique things to become common suddenly. So we are constantly striving to be open to adapting as fashion taste changes as well as showing people that you don’t have to follow current fashion and trends and to appreciate and embrace the beauty of having a unique look.
Keval: What we've also found over the last few years is that people look for individuality and don't want to be like everybody else, something that has definitely been much more on the rise within the last 4 or 5 years.
Which of these glasses here represents your personality?
Hala: Unusual shape, asymmetry, that's Keval. Slightly weird, textures with unpolished, rough edges.
Keval: [Points to the ones Hala is wearing now] That is quite the epitome of her. Just bold, confident, and strong.
What are some of the proudest pieces from your collection?
Keval: This represents us a little bit. We draw inspiration from other industries and use those techniques on eyewear.
Hala: The parts are interchangeable, and you can change the design. It's just an amazing object, so different from the norm.
How do you go about finding glasses like this?
Keval: The newer collections we find at expos around the world, we enjoy finding small, niche artists and manufacturers. We've got a vintage collection, which is huge, which I've been collecting for 28 years from travelling.
What is “Unity” in terms of image & design as well as expression?
When we help our customers, our goal is to create a memorable and personalized experience where they feel understood, inspired, and confident in their eyewear. We use our creativity and understanding of people to connect with people on a deeper level by understanding their lifestyles, interests, and values and interpreting their preferences, needs, and personalities. This helps us choose eyewear that aligns with people's personal identity and try to help them express themselves authentically. We enjoy experimenting with different frame shapes, colors, and materials to offer customers options, usually outside of the box! By applying these principles to our work and using mind, body, and soul together, we try to make a difference in people’s lives by changing their confidence as well as appearance.
How do you help people to manifest their passion in life? Any inspirations from your past life experiences?
It's very easy for people to be stuck in a rut or box themselves in how they perceive themselves and how they should fit in with the world around them. There is often fear of initially moving away from that. To us, every person is a blank canvas, and after getting to know them, we can help them to see an alternative version of themselves. We all have hang-ups about ourselves- and we help people overcome this obstacle and see the beauty in themselves and their unique features. And then show how a favourite item of clothing can make you feel good about yourself. A beautiful and well- matched pair of glasses or sunglasses can have the same effect every day.
Editor - Lisja Tërshana
Lisja Tërshana (@tershana) is Art Editor of Aurum Arts. She is also an art curator, writer, and design strategist. As an MA Innovation Management candidate at Central Saint Martins, she is researching innovative philosophies and mediums to meaningfully transform the art ecosystem.
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