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What do people look for when they are trying on glasses? What’s too much, what’s not enough? What fits their personality? People have different outlooks on the use of glasses. Some don’t use them for any other reason but to see. Grand View freshman Noah McClintock said “I don’t wear them for aesthetic reasons, I just have bad eyesight.” Senior Brandon Slifka agrees, saying, “My glasses are more for my convenience.” Others have totally different opinions though.

“The first pair of glasses I got were just a general pair, and I felt like they weren’t me, so I decided I should just get the weirdest ones possible,” said Bailey Smith, GV senior. She wears them to see better, but her eyesight isn’t bad enough that she has to wear them every single day. She chooses to though.

“I want my glasses to say that I am unique and that I have a retro style,” Smith said. “I want to show that I am not afraid to be different.”

Some stores that sell glasses may not help with the trying-on process and instead let customers handle it for themselves. Not Russ Uptown Optical. It has been around for almost 40 years now. The original owner of the store, Russ Mentzer, has been working with optics since 1951. Russ Uptown Optical has a variety of brands to offer.

“Probably 99% of the brands you haven’t heard of just because they are smaller, more independent lines,” said Kyle Mentzer, the grandson of the original owner of the store. Some of them include Prodesign, Lytech and their most popular, Lafont. They have been carrying this brand for around 20 years. “They do an awesome job of blending a unique frame without going too crazy,” Kyle said.

Kyle thinks it differentiates among people what their glasses say about them. He said he has customers who really don’t care about the style of their glasses and just pick the easiest option. On the contrary, there are people who are very specific about what they want.

“It kind of boils down to what people want out of a frame. If they just want something to see out of, or there are people who are also super picky,” he said. He said some customers match their glasses with their outfit or even with their mood.

The process the store follows to find a pair of glasses for a customer is actually quite simple. There is no personality test or questionnaire; they just have customers try on many different pairs and find which works best for them. When they are selling to someone, they try to read his or her personality and lead him or her to a style that matches. They like to see which frames he or she was wearing before and ask him or her what he or she has been seeing and wanting to wear.

“People get shocked by the type of frames they can actually pull off,” Kyle said. They have to make sure not to push people too much out of their comfort zone. Most people that come to Russ’ are on the more fashionable end, but they also have the basic frames, as well.

“We have something for everybody here. We do have the reputation of having the fun, funky stuff, but we also don’t want people to run away,” Kyle said.

Their glasses vary in price. With such a high reputation, many people think all the glasses will be very expensive, but they are actually very comparable with other eye glass stores.

Whether you use your glasses for aesthetics or just to see properly, glasses are important to those who wear them. Glasses say something about the person wearing them whether they want them to or not. Next time you pick out your glasses, think about how they fit your personality.