As I am sure many of you know, much of the eyeglass industry is dominated by one big player, Luxottica. They produce most of the glasses for most brands you’ve ever heard of, and simply relabel it for one designer to another. But, in the end, it’s all the same mediocre frames.
As a lover, and long-time wearer of glasses, I am therefore always excited when new independent eyewear brands emerge. And none has been more intriguing to me as of late than Oscar Deen. They’re still somewhat young, and don’t have a gigantic library of frames, but that, to me, is a feature, not a bug. They’re a charming glasses company focused on recreating vintage designs by making them just a touch more modern.
The perfect example of this is with their latest release, the Morris. It’s based on the original AO Safety Frame, but they combined both the male and female design variants into one well-shaped, nicely proportioned, ever-so-slightly angular frame. It comes in a bunch of vintage inspired colors, and overall is an excellent addition to any collection. You can, as with all their frames, get either a sunglass or optical version of the frame, which is quite nice as well. And I can tell you first-hand, these frames work super great either way.
Another thing we love about these frames is the attention to detail. The metal core inside the arms is nicely engraved, which adds visual interest and a truly unique element that especially comes through with the clear frame color ways like the one shown here. The temple arms are also a nice 150mm length, with a slight curve put in them straight from the manufacturer. This longer length allows them to be comfortably worn by all shapes and head sizes. (I must seek out these longer armed frames to properly fit my larger head, but most eyeglasses have 140mm or 145mm arms which are simply too short for me. These longer frame arms are a more costly proposition for a brand, so it’s super nice to see Oscar Deen making that proper investment.)
Finally, I do wish these frames were just a bit wider, which would truly modernize them even more. I know there is a balance to be struck here, but vintage frames seemed to be designed for chipmunks, with 40, 42, or 44mm lenses, while modern frames will go all the way up to 52mm at times. That’s not to say these should have been oversized, but I wish they would have come in closer to a 145mm width across the front. (Note, by the way, that the reported lens width of 58 on the site is a typo. It’s 48. I’m told this is being updated soon.)
In all, though, this is the second pair of frames I own from Oscar Deen and am quite happy with them both. They’re a wonderful company doing wonderful things in the eyewear space, and is run by people that know their stuff and deeply care about vintage eyewear design. I hope they are around for many years to come.