Hard to believe that this is our fifth day in NYC, this is turning into quite the marathon event. Looking at our schedule we knew that this was going to be a busy day, we had a lot of appointments, and quite a special day – we would only be spending half of it at the actual convention centre.
Visiting the stands at the convention centre brings many great things, you inevitably see new things across all of the different sectors that make up the optometric business. You find some amazing unexpected finds, perhaps hidden away in a smaller booth or tucked away in a corner. You also see some tremendous showboating by some of the industry giants as they try to prove that my stand is bigger than your stand. We could go on at some length about how awful some of these are, but that’s not why we’re here. When we see these monstrosities, though, it does reassure us that we are absolutely correct to continue to forge great relationship with independent manufacturers, designers and suppliers.
This mornings hidden gem was something that we have been looking for since before we opened, and today we found the solution – literally! We have been looking for an eyeglass cleaner spray that we were happy with for a long time, we wanted something as environmentally friendly as possible, which did a great job of cleaning and protecting your lenses and fitted our general office philosophies. Now we have it:
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Our very own ‘local’ eyeglass cleaner |
When you now pick up your new eyewear, be sure to pick up a bottle of this spray formulated with Nova Scotia water! The great thing is, when you have this bottle you can come back any time to get it re-filled – we want you to keep your eyeglasses looking fabulous, after all!
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Activist Eyewear |
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The sparkliest business venue ever! |
The exhibitors at the Loft are perhaps some of the most exclusive eyewear ranges available, the cream of the crop. The Loft was originally started by Bevel to try to provide a better setting to choose eyewear in and to get away from the burden of dealing with the main venue’s exhibition red tape. In so many ways, they have succeeded. The atmosphere is relaxed and laid back, there are a wonderful collection of exhibitors and you get the sense of both open-ness and intimacy at the same time. There does not feel any pressure to choose your selection and move on, here.
We then spend some time with Bevel. Bevel is a line which we have not reviewed before, however, as they are the innovators of the Loft, it would seem rude not to. Firstly, they are thoroughly nice people … thoroughly! Creative, global, caring and most of all … nice! So it’s already looking good from the relationship point of view. In saying that, we already had quite a lot of stock organised and some more appointments to go. We have good lines chosen for the office already that have been working well for us, do we really need another range?
We get down to the task in hand and start to go through the range – beautiful, simply, beautiful. Hand made in Japan, their quality is superb. Oh, go on then, let’s chose some of these, they really are wonderful.
Then we go to our final appointment – SALT. We’ve been looking forward to this for quite some time, they really are a range of eyeglasses which has become a firm favourite in our office. After meeting with all the great people of SALT., including designer David who we’d last seen in Paris, it was time to catch up with Amy – our local agent from Ontario. We went through the new collection, you feel very special seeing the models as they have just been launched and aren’t even in the market yet.
What’s new for this year for us? Sunglasses from SALT. Having found their ophthalmic frames to be such a popular range and having found their quality to be exemplary, adding the sunglasses range was an easy decision.
Some of the models are available as both sunglasses and ophthalmic frames and some are just available as one or the other. SALT. sunnies come with quality polarized lenses as standard and we are able to put prescription lenses in all of the.
Thankfully we also managed to find some wonderful models to help us choose the sunglasses that we wanted to showcase at Ocean.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t all about modelling the sunglasses, maybe it was all about just shooting the breeze with a cool California vibe while looking fabulous and feeling 100% the absolute rockstar. They’re not just sunglasses, they’re a lifestyle choice, and you know it!
Did we order some?
Absolutely!
We were in New York; we were there avoiding a storm that was burying Nova Scotia in snow; we were hiding from the rain lashing down outside – but we were wearing the coolest sunglasses and in our world the sun was most definitely shining.
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Our sunglasses collection. |
As a final note we are very thankful for the time that all of the companies give us. We are fairly intensive about wanting to be completely knowledgeable about the products that we carry and some of our questions are challenging. It is important to us to know the construction techniques inside out and back to front, we want to ensure that the glasses you choose from Ocean are second to none.
For more information about these independent eyewear ranges please see:
Activist Eyewear – https://oceanoptometry.ca/index.php/activist-eyewear
Rolf Spectacles – https://oceanoptometry.ca/index.php/rolf-spectacles
Bevel Spectacles – https://oceanoptometry.ca/index.php/bevel
SALT. Optics – https://oceanoptometry.ca/index.php/salt
The rainy day finished with a lovely Italian meal in an incredibly busy restaurant right on 7th Avenue near Central Park. Kindly invited as guests of Allergan again, it is a great chance to catch up with both optometrist colleagues, especially from different provinces, and the professionals from Allergan.