Bril
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Bril

Spectacles, frames and lens fitting — Fourth Avenue, Parkhurst, Johannesburg.

Look at the frames

We measure before we sell you anything

The room is small and it is off Fourth Avenue, behind the door with nothing written on it. There is no wall of two hundred frames. There are about sixty, kept because they suit a face and because they weigh little enough that you stop noticing them, and we will put four on you and take three of them away again. Lenses are cut in the back room and go onto the frame in three working days. If the frame you walked in with is still sound, we would rather re-lens it than sell you another one, and we will say so before you have taken your wallet out.

The six that leave the tray most often

Acetate round, tortoise
Frames

Acetate round, tortoise

Italian acetate, cut and hand-polished, in a warm tortoise that sits alongside most colouring instead of fighting it. It comes in a 46 and a 48 eye on a 21 bridge and a 145 temple — say which one we put on you and we will pull that one off the tray. Light enough that you stop noticing it somewhere in the second day, which is the only test of a frame that counts for anything. Acetate can be warmed and bent at the temple for as long as you own it, and that adjustment is free here, permanently.

R1 690.00Add to cart
Titanium rimless
Frames

Titanium rimless

Titanium bends and comes back instead of snapping, which is most of why it costs what it costs and all of why people who sit on their glasses end up buying it. A 50 eye on a 19 bridge and a 140 temple, and it weighs under nine grams with the lenses in it. Rimless wants a thinner lens to drill cleanly, so if your prescription is too strong for it we will tell you at the counter rather than after we have cut them. Nose pads are replaceable and we keep the spares in the drawer.

R3 250.00Add to cart
Reading frames +1.50
Readers

Reading frames +1.50

Ready-made readers in matte black for close work, no appointment and no prescription needed. One size, spring hinges, and a lens that is properly ground rather than pressed, which you notice after an hour at a laptop and not before. Buy two, one for the kitchen and one for the bag, because these are left behind more often than anything else we sell. If you are already holding the page further away than these help, come in and have the eyes tested instead.

R390.00Add to cart
Clip-on sun lenses
Lenses & clip-ons

Clip-on sun lenses

A grey-green tint on a light spring clip, cut and fitted to your own frame at the counter while you wait. Cheaper than a second prescription pair, and it lives in the car door where a second pair never does. Grey-green because it keeps colours roughly honest on the road, which brown does not. Bring the frame in with you — we cut to its shape rather than handing you a rectangle that covers half of it.

R450.00Add to cart
Matte metal aviator
Frames

Matte metal aviator

A proper optical aviator at 54-18-145, not a sunglass shell with clear lenses dropped into it. The eye is deep enough to carry a progressive lens without you tipping your head back to read the menu, which is exactly what goes wrong when people buy this shape off a website. Matte gunmetal, adjustable pads and a double bridge that keeps it square on a wider face. It takes a clip-on cleanly if you want one made up.

R1 890.00Add to cart
Microfibre cloth and hard case set
Care

Microfibre cloth and hard case set

A hard case that actually closes on a thicker acetate frame, which is more than can be said for the one that came free with the last pair, and a plain microfibre cloth folded inside it. Buy a second set for the car, because the car is where most frames get sat on. Wash the cloth cold with no fabric softener — softener is what stops a microfibre working, and then everybody blames the lens coating. Nothing printed on either of them.

R180.00Add to cart

What a fitting actually involves

Twenty minutes, mostly with a ruler and a pen. We measure your pupillary distance — the gap between the centres of your two pupils — because a lens has an optical centre and it has to sit in front of yours. Land it a few millimetres out and you get headaches and blame the prescription. Then we measure the height of that centre inside the frame you have picked up, which is why a frame is measured on your face before it is chosen and not after. Bring the prescription you already have. If it is older than two years we will send you for a test first, and we will not cut lenses off it.

Lenses cut on Wednesday are back on the frame by Monday

Single vision, bifocal or progressive, cut and edged in the back room rather than sent away. Bring in the frame you already own and we will re-lens it for less than a new pair.

See what is in stock

The rest of what we do here

Frames measured before they are chosen
Frames measured before they are chosen
Lenses cut in three working days
Lenses cut in three working days
Old frames re-lensed, not replaced
Old frames re-lensed, not replaced
Tinting and sun lenses, cut to order
Tinting and sun lenses, cut to order
Solder, screws and new nose pads
Solder, screws and new nose pads
Collections and fitting appointments
Collections and fitting appointments

Book a fitting

Tuesday to Friday 09:00–17:00 and Saturday until 13:00. A current prescription is enough to start — leave your number and what you are wearing now, and we will phone back to set a time.