Photo Courtesy of Tom Davies

Who is this man, Tom Davies — entrepreneur and owner of TD Tom Davies eyewear? With such a common name, shouldn’t he have a common job, a common life? Tom Davies, the milkman. Or Tom Davies, the local schoolteacher. An every day hero — not a master of the eyewear world, not a man at the top of the fashion sphere.

At this time, Tom Davies exists as the largest maker of bespoke glasses in the entire world. Perhaps he can be defined as an everyday man’s hero: a man looking to find you the best shape and frame for your face, the eyeglasses through which you will see each day of your life.

The Idea Behind Tom Davies Bespoke Service

When Davies went to China in his early twenties, he faced a realization many travelers embrace: that not all countries are the same — that face shapes shift over continents, that measurements of foreheads, noses, chins change like trees and bushes in different climates. Therefore, he chose to incorporate this idea in his design — either offering it as a bespoke service or a couture service.

Photo Courtesy of Tom Davies

Tom’s bespoke and couture industry should be defined: bespoke is casual re-calibration of your face. Therefore, it takes an original, stock design eye frame and places it appropriately with the measurements of your face. Not all faces are the same, of course, and this allows you to receive the “proper size” of the fashion item for which you’ve sent. Like tailoring a dress, for example — a wedding dress style requiring the proper calibrations for your body shape.

When his clients aim toward a couture line, however, things go into infinite meanderings. He takes three photos of the clients face and sends the photos back to experts in China — the country he spent nine years learning to work in the eyeglass industry, thus honing his current design knowledge. While the client picks the general design, color, even specific type of horn for material usage — the Chinese craftsmen yield the final result. The clients are pleased with their handcrafted frames. Davies is the proud in-between.

This is More Just Individuality!

Davies starts at the optician: the man prescribing the very frames you need. (This is assuming you aren’t pegging for frames for vanity’s sake.) He has linked many opticians with his Chinese hand-craft workshop. The opticians utilize the Supertool web design community to input the eyeglass seeker’s choice of color, textures, medias, and various measurements. Within just a couple of hours, the skilled agents in Shenzhen have created efficient arms for the frames. Davies simply creates a simplistic piece for the front of the frames: something the wearer specified, something subtle and perfect, fitted to his three photos assessing face shape.

Photo Courtesy of Tom Davies

Tom Davies’ frames to this date have been most useful for just his initial purpose: for those in need of strange sizes — those from different ancestral backgrounds but similar integral fashion senses. The large-headed male and the teeny female cranium can now join together with the same frame shape.

How could the frame industry have overlooked such difference in size before? The lenses must change, of course, from person to person — this has been the current definition of the eyeglass world. But across a broad spectrum of people, you wouldn’t even assume a one hat fits all scenario would do. Why did we go so long associating this one for all idea with eyeglass frames? Hindsight is 20/20.

Glamorous or Intelligent? You can have both!

And now, several years after that fateful decade spent in China, the not so common Tom Davies is set to open his own eye clinic — with ready-to-wear glasses, bespoke and couture services all laid out in Sloane Square, London.

Photo Courtesy of Peter Akkerman

Tom verifies that the “not one size fits all” technique will only last him so long. He must promote to a larger audience, the in-betweeners without a direct need for specialized frames. He must assert that individuality exists in a different hue, in a more obtuse slant of a hipster eye frame.

Don’t continue down this path of assertion that whatever exists at your downtown obstetrician is the only option. Your glasses should be like your next tattoo, your next big fashion step. They should proclaim something about you and your individuality: be it your spectacular nose or your affinity for the color purple. Let TD Tom Davies take you there.