See? Reading Specs With Style

In Ben Franklin’s day, elders with failing vision wore ready-made spectacles, primitive magnifying glasses in various strengths to help them read or sew.

Now, readers are becoming chic with a momentum made possible only by the sheer numbers of never-say-old baby boomers.

Each year from now until 2010, manufacturers expect about 4 million people to turn 40, the magic age when small print grows fuzzy. The industry is banking that this generation, never one to succumb quietly, will demand eyeglasses that are fun, easy to get and, naturally, all about them.

Just like Levis in the ‘70s, running shoes in the ‘80s and business cards in the ‘90s, readers for baby boomers are “one more way to express who you are,” said James Spina, editor in chief of 20/20 Magazine, an eyewear trade publication.

“They’re the hottest accessory in the industry,” he said.

Beyond the plain vanilla glass ovals that sit on drugstore racks, ready-to-wear readers can be found in rhinestone, tiger print, and rainbow frames. There are funky retro rounds, serious small rectangles, foldables and wafer-thin glasses that fit into an outsized lipstick case. There are stick-on plastic magnifiers, sunglass readers and readers tinted to make eyes look whiter.

Linda Hall, 53, a retired executive from San Diego, received a pair of reading glasses concealed in a super-sized ballpoint pen for her birthday eight months ago. She wears them over her contacts and always takes them to the golf course. “I use my pen to tally up my score and use the glasses to see the little numbers,” she said.

Unlike a pair of custom-ground prescription glasses, which can cost anywhere from $60 to $400, the molded plastic readers come in preset strengths, varying in magnification from +1 to +4 in increments of .25. Both lenses are the same. They cost as little as $7 in drugstores and grocery stores. Optical quality designer versions can run from $40 to $80 in upscale department stores, specialty stores and on the Internet.

In the last five years, ready-to-wear reading glasses have exploded threefold into a $332-million retail market, which will only grow as boomers become prey to presbyopia, the inevitable and incurable phenomenon that causes the lenses of a person’s eyes to thicken and lose their ability to focus. Lots of people notice when their arms suddenly become too short to hold a printed page far enough away to bring the words into focus. But they have neither the time nor the money to visit an eye doctor and order expensive frames. Even then, some can’t find the style they want.

Mary Beth Lanassa, 53, of Ohio, was vacationing with her husband, Don, in New Orleans several years ago when they stumbled on a store with a very large sign: “Reading Glasses to Go.” She entered, hoping to find an inexpensive pair of bifocal sunglasses to help her see the dashboard when she was behind the wheel and to navigate when Don was driving. “He’d say, ‘Get the map! Get the map!’ I’d have to throw off my sunglasses and put my regular reading glasses on,” she said. She left the store with three pairs of $50 sun readers. “They were a nice, dark color,” she said. “I could sit in the car and see all the buttons and when I looked up, I could drive.”

Based on her happy experience, she and Don now own a specialty store themselves in Mansfield, Ohio, and sell readers over the Internet at https://www.readingglassesplus.com.

Besides sun readers, Mary Beth owns half-readers (the Ben Franklin look), full readers (magnifiers from top to bottom) and bifocal readers (clear on top, magnifiers below). She likes the bifocals because she can keep them on her face and walk around without the seasick feeling she gets from full readers. She matches her outfits with frames in tortoise shell, green, red and the “really crazy ones” that are hand painted. During the day, she wears the 1.25 strength and the stronger 1.5 late at night. “I talk to people who have readers in every room,” she said. Once illegal to sell without a license, nonprescription readers remain mildly controversial among eye doctors. While some see no harm in readers and will even recommend them, others believe they are dangerous.

The vast majority of people do not have identical vision in both eyes and will experience strain when the magnification in both lenses is the same. However, Peter Shaw-McMinn, assistant professor at Southern California College of Optometry in Fullerton, said the main problem isn’t in the glasses themselves. “It’s that people who get them don’t realize it’s been so long since they had an eye exam, or they don’t get eye exams at all.”

Examinations are the only way to detect some diseases that can cause blindness such as glaucoma or macular degeneration, he said. The American Public Health Assn. is also concerned about hypertension and diabetes, under-diagnosed diseases that can be detected through an eye exam.

Some readers now carry a label warning they are not intended to replace prescribed corrective lenses or examinations by an eye care professional. The labels note continuous eye checkups are necessary to determine eye health status and vision needs.

Some frames are not that sturdy. A $22 pair I picked up in an airport store broke after two months. And some consumers find glasses ordered over the Internet don’t fit properly. In that case, almost any optometrist will adjust them free of charge, Don Lanassa said. “They do it in hopes that when the person needs a prescription, they will go to them,” he said.

For many baby boomers, the basic problem has been finding the right look.

“The biggest complaint I hear is that a lot of these drugstore glasses have no style,” said Los Angeles optician Cheryl Shuman, a self-described “optician to the stars.” She said consumers who want the celebrity look can scan their own photos into her Web site

(https://www.StarryEyes.com) and virtually try on any one of 3,000 pairs of glasses in celebrity images. Her custom tints can simulate under-eye concealer with flesh tint over dark circles. A 5% blue tint can also make the whites of a person’s eyes appear whiter and brighter.

Because there are so many aging boomers, she expects readers to replace sunglasses as her biggest moneymaker next season. “There is such a demand and such little supply,” she said. “It’s a generation that demands fashion and wants to stay looking as young as possible.”

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Lynn Smith can be reached at lynn.smith@latimes.com.

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Presbyopia Facts

* Presbyopia is a form of farsightedness caused by the diminished elasticity of the eye’s crystalline lens.

* Eyes gradually start to lose their ability to focus up close starting at age 10.

* Nearly everyone gets presbyopia as they reach middle age.

* Seventy-six million baby boomers are, or soon will be, affected.

* Presbyopia cannot be cured, although it can be easily corrected with reading glasses.

Source: The Better Vision Institute, Washington, D.C.