Joe Fresh can sell you a pair of sunnies for $14. They come in current silhouettes like oversized shapes and slick chrome aviators and may last you a summer or two. Or you can up your budget a bit and hit the Mercury rack at Over the Rainbow where every imaginable sunglass frame is available for between $18 and $22.
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Spend a little more on some vintage specs at I Miss You. There are lots of retro pairs there for under $45. Fashion sunglasses like a candy coloured pair of Supers go for $140 at Ministry of the Interior and Gafas sells the ubiquitous Wayfarer for $170.
For tomorrow’s Take 5, we photographed a lineup of sunglasses that range in price from $180 to $525. That top price point is for a pair of Oliver Goldsmith sunglasses from Josephson. They are hand crafted in Japan and based on a vintage model found in the British company’s archive from the 1940s through the 1970s.
That’s nice, you may be thinking, but why bother? Those cheap and cheerful Joe Fresh ones you mentioned off the top sound just great!
When I need to make sense of eyewear spending I visit Julia and Mel at Rapp on College. They’ve been producing a Rapp line of stylish-to-quirky frames in Toronto for the past five years and custom orders for the past 30.
Mel says a good sunglass frame should be adjustable for fit and large enough to protect against both sun and wind. Lenses should block both UV-A and UV-B light, be free of distortion and polarized with an anti-reflection coating to enhance vision while biking or driving.
You won’t necessarily find any of those features on sunglasses that sport designer clothing labels. A big brand logo on the arm may be the only luxury you’re paying for.
“The consumer’s identity, or lack thereof, may determine how important it is for them to pay for and wear that status symbol, regardless of quality,” says Rapp. “At other times, the consumer is actually receiving more value than the price-tag suggests. The mass production of quality frames keeps the price affordable.”
Rapp’s glasses are made in Toronto using custom machines and 100 year old techniques. His four, full time craftspeople can only produce five frames a day, hence the line’s $390 to $1200 price range.
So if you find our Take 5 picks a little swanky, either because they’re out of your budget or you’d rather spend any disposable income elsewhere, the alternatives are endless. Just keep your eyes open. Whether you’re shopping the high or low end of the sunglass spectrum, you don’t always get what you pay for.
