The price, and where it comes from
What would you like to know?
The real question
The one everyday object whose price nobody knows
You know the price of a litre of fuel to the nearest penny. You know what a loaf costs, a coffee out, a season ticket. You even notice when the coffee goes up by forty pence.
Now a question. What does a pair of glasses cost? Not what you paid. What it costs.
Nobody knows. It is about the only everyday object whose real price is invisible, including to people who have worn a pair for twenty years. And that is no accident.
The thing nobody does
Shop around
You compare everything. Phone plans, flights, insurance, price per kilo.
A pair of glasses, no. You buy one every two or three years, in a single shop, on the day you happen to have the prescription in your pocket. There is nothing to carry from one window to the next, no price to remember, no benchmark.
It is nobody's fault. A glasses price simply never gets around.
Ours is written here.
What we took out
We did not find a magic workshop. We took out the middlemen
- The usual route: five middlemen.Factory, brand, wholesaler, chain, shop, and you at the end. Each one takes a margin on the way through.
- Ours: three.Our studio designs in Paris, the factory produces, our Paris workshop checks and assembles. Then you, online or in store.
- Maker and shopkeeper at once.Our 17 stores are our own, not franchises to supply. There is nobody between us and you, so there is nobody to pay between us and you.
Our offer
Buy one, get one free
Our frames come in three price tiers, depending on the model. That is the price on the label, for one pair. Except we do not sell one. Buy one, get one free, on frames and on lenses, online and in store.
Two pairs, one price. One for screens and one for the sun, or one for every day and one you keep in the car.
- Entry tier.Where the collection starts.
- Middle tier.More shaping, more work at the bench.
- Top tier.Our most complex frames to make. Same acetate, same hardware as the entry tier.
What the entry price puts in your hands
A low price does not hide a compromise
The instinct, at this point, is to assume a low price must be hiding a compromise somewhere. It is a healthy instinct. It just is not what is happening here.
- The same acetate at every tier.The same screws, the same hinges. We do not downgrade the material as the price comes down. What changes from one tier to the next is the shape, the finishing, how complex the frame is to make.
- What makes a good frame is the drawing.Two pairs can cost exactly the same to produce and look nothing alike once they are on a face. The curve, the proportions, the width of the bridge, the thickness at the hinge, the balance of the temples. It all happens there, and that is our designer's craft.
The proof
We are not asking you to take our word for it
Pick one up.
Acetate has weight. It is smooth, deep, it catches the light. Under your fingers it feels silky, almost warm, and slides like polished stone.
No two frames of the same model ever come from the same spot on the sheet. On a tortoise, you can see it with the naked eye. Yours looks like no other.
What is left once the middlemen are gone
The money we do not spend on the chain
We put it back where you can see it.
- Opticians on the payroll.It is our own qualified opticians who read the prescriptions and glaze the lenses.
- A check before every shipment.Temples tightened, nose pads set, lenses cleaned. A pair that does not pass does not leave.
- A workshop in Paris.Everything ships from there: 24 working hours without prescription lenses, up to 10 working days with. Delivery times and options depend on your country.
- 17 stores.Where we fit your pair, whether it came from the site or off a shelf. If you would rather stay at home, there is an optician on the other end of the line.
There you go
You do not have to buy from us
But the next time someone quotes you a price for a pair of glasses, you will have a fair idea of what is inside it, and what is around it. That is already something.
Jérémie, co-founder of Le Petit Lunetier
See for yourself
It is all here: our prescription glasses and our sunglasses. And if you want to know how they are made, we go into it on the sustainability page.